by The hospital bed, in which Jo Butterfield was lying at this time last year and watching her teammates around the World Ring Curling Championship Silberwaren, seems to be a long time in the past.
After 12 months, Butterfield is back where she feels the most at home. To compete on the world stage and it couldn’t have come early enough.
Your return to GBS wheelchair curling team is just a reward for a person who is exposed to more obstacles in your life than anyone should.
Her latest challenge was her diagnosis of breast cancer, which came in 2023 and was the reason that she had no competitive measures for over a year.
The butterfield was primarily the latest chapter in a remarkable, turbulent life in a wheelchair curling squad from GB.
After suffering a spine tumor in 2011, she was paralyzed under the chest below the chest and then began her career as a para sport as a wheelchair rugby player. But when she turned to athletics, especially the F51 club throw, she achieved global success.
A world championship title in 2015 quickly followed by Paralympic Gold in Rio the following year, with a second Paralympic appearance at Tokyo 2020.
However, since her Club throw was deleted from the Paralympic program of athletics, she decided to switch to a wheelchair curling, which turned out that she also had a rare talent.
Silberwaren quickly came on their way, with bronze in the confirmation of the wheelchair curling championships 2023 that their sports change had been a clever step.
But then the world of butterfield changed in a bolt out of the blue.
“I found a buddy in my chest that I thought nothing, but I still checked it out,” says the 45-year-old, who was born in Yorkshire, but has been living in Glasgow for a long time.
“It was quickly told that there was a good chance that it was cancer. I really didn’t expect this news, and then I was told that it was big – about seven centimeters. It was also very aggressive and one of the rarer types of breast cancer.
“Because it was big, I was sent for a full body scan and if the cancer had spread, it would not be curable.”
Waiting for the results of your scan, said Butterfield, almost unbearable. Understandably, the prospect was that the worst possible messages were on the way to ignore it.
“You just don’t know how to deal with such messages,” she says.
“People tell me strong and I am brave and I think yes, that’s me. I knew that if there was a fight with cancer, I would have it.
“But if there is no fight, I can’t do much. Waiting for these results was the worst. Your brain is only crazy about thinking about everything.
“You know that you will die if it is not curable.
“I was in training when the call came with my results and she told me that it was good news that the cancer had not spread. The relief was incredible.
“As soon as I knew it was treatable, everything felt different.”
Butterfield then started a protracted chemotherapy program that caused some but not complete disorders of your training plan.
For most, the injustice, first with paralysis and then confronted with cancer, would be overwhelming. Remarkably, this reaction for Butterfield was only fleeting.
“I had a moment when I thought why I? Why do I have cancer? “, She says.
“But then I quickly turned this story in my head because it really doesn’t help. I changed it, well, why not me? Why should I be immune to cancer?
“In my life I went through things that seemed insurmountable. But actually they only register with it and deal with it and that was the case again. “
Her cancer treatment was very hard, admits butterfield. The support she received from everyone in her sport was “incredible”, but the greatest reason to stay on the ice while navigating cancer was that it was the only place where she felt “normal”.
“It was important for me to continue training because that’s what I do. I am an athlete. I’ve been in sports for a long time and have this normality of training for me for me, ”she says.
“The treatment made it more difficult and I wasn’t there every day, but I was as much as possible. When I was on the ice, I didn’t think of cancer. “
(Picture: .) As Butterfield admits, there was doubt as to whether she could make it back on the international stage.
One of her chemotherapy treatments came in the middle of the world championship last year and hammered home what she was missing and how far she was an elite athlete at that moment.
But in view of Butterfield’s record of success, she may not have fought in the GB team surprisingly, and in addition to Gregor Ewan, Austin McKenzie, Hugh Nibloe and Gary Smith will compete with this year’s wheelchair -curling world championships that are starting today and are clearly in North Ayrshire.
Back at the World Championships is important for Butterfield, and the fact that it is a home event is particularly unique.
“Being at home means there will be different distractions, but it is amazing to have the chance to take part in our loved ones,” she says.
“You are the people who helped me get to this point and you are the people who were with me when I went through cancer. They made it possible for me to be here now.”
This World Cup is far from the final goal of Butterfield.
Rather, this will only be in a year, as she hopes that she will end in Milan Cortina next March and that Butterfield would join a selected group of athletes who have become paralympic champion in both summer and winter games.
Her cancer diagnosis was a “bump on the street” in her words because she strives for this goal, but she is firmly convinced that she did not fully derail her persecution and actually helped her to navigate the last two years of turbulence.
“I have on my cell phone until the end of the Paralympics like many days because I want to sit there with a gold medal,” she says.
“It is what I strive for every day.
“Yes, having cancer was not on my plan, but I’m glad to sit here today and know that this is in the past. And the saying says that something that is more difficult to achieve is a bit sweeter when you do it. “
