Roman Reigns opens up about his leukemia diagnosis.
On the latest episode of WWE Chronicle, Roman Reigns revealed he had CML Leukemia (aka chronic myeloid leukemia), which forced him to step away from WWE back in October. Reigns said that they caught the disease early and he went through "oral chemotherapy" for treatment.
“It’s not like taking Advil. It’s nothing like taking radiation and true chemotherapy, but it does have its side effects," said Roman. "It does have its nastiness about it. At the end of the day, if you’re lucky enough to just take a pill, I think you’re ahead of the game. An oral chemotherapy is a huge win for people. And I'm one of them. It's allowed me to maintain a certain level of health and allowed me to stay out of pain.”
Reigns revealed that the main side effect was arthritis in his feet up to his hips, but he would take that over radiation any day.
Also in the episode, Reigns detailed the day he found out about the leukemia returning, saying, "I was at a live event, I believe it was either a Saturday or a Sunday. I just remember one of our doctors telling me that something was going on with my blood tests and they wanted to do another one because they thought something was off. So I went in and did another one and then I remember going to TV on Monday. I remember one of the refs coming up to me and usually they’ll be like ‘you’re needed in TR [Talent Relations], Mark [Carrano] wants to see you.’ And I’m like ‘ah yeah, whatever. I’ll get there when I get there.’"
Reigns continued, "But this time they’re like ‘Hey, Dr. Amann, the medical staff want to see you.’ So I knew something was up. But I still in my head didn’t truly believe it. It was just like, ‘Ah, something weird. You’ll be fine. Blah blah blah.' But when I got there, I could tell. The whole crew was in there. They broke the news that my white blood cell count was obviously elevated. We could point fingers in certain directions, but with my history they kinda already knew what was going on."
Reigns returned to WWE last week, announcing his leukemia is in remission. He is scheduled to team with Seth Rollins & Dean Ambrose to take on Drew McIntyre, Baron Corbin & Bobby Lashley this Sunday at WWE Fastlane.
The full episode of WWE Chronicle is available on WWE Network.
