Former New Zealand cricket all-rounder Chris Cairns has been diagnosed with bowel cancer, five months after suffering a spinal stroke following emergency heart surgery.
Photo: John McCombe/PHOTOSPORT
In an Instagram post, Cairns said the cancer diagnosis came as a "big shock" after a routine checkup.
Just last week, Cairns left Canberra Hospital after 141 days as an inpatient recovering from a spinal stroke, which he suffered after life-saving treatment for a torn artery in August.
The stroke left the 51-year-old paralysed from the waist down, but since then he has been working on walking again.
"So, as I prepare for another round of conversations with surgeons and specialists, I keep remembering how lucky I am to be here in the first place…and how blessed I am to have all that I do in my life," Cairns wrote on his social media on Saturday.
"Another fight ahead but here's hoping this one is a swift upper cut and over in the first round."
Cairns played 62 tests, 215 one-day internationals and two Twenty20 matches for New Zealand between 1989-2006.