Last spring, Kelly Stafford was diagnosed with a brain tumor that needed to be removed as soon as possible. Not long after the diagnosis, Kelly, who is the wife of Detroit Lions’ QB Matthew Stafford, underwent a 12-hour surgery (supposed to be six hours) to remove the tumor.
Ever since the surgery, Kelly has been doing everything she can to get back to where she was before the diagnosis.
Kelly is an extremely tough and determined woman but she has made it clear that her husband Matthew has been by her side every step of the way.
In a recent interview with Mitch Albom of the Detroit News, Matthew admitted he was prepared to walk away from the Detroit Lions and football entirely if that was what was best for Kelly and his children.
From Detroit News:
What lay ahead for Stafford was not a distant end zone, but the rest of his wife’s life, and his life, and their children’s lives. In other words, his entire future.
“Did any part of you, while that was going on, say, ‘We may have to change everything?’ ” I asked Stafford over the phone last week.
“No question,” he said.
“And were you prepared, if you had to, to give up playing football?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “I would have done anything.”
“You don’t really know what’s gonna happen or how (the surgery is) gonna end up,” Stafford said, when asked what he would have done if the worst had transpired. “But it would have been a decision that, I think, would have been easy for me. I could learn to do anything to help her.
“And I knew if something did go wrong — I knew she wasn’t gonna give up easily. She’s a tough person and has a lot of willpower. I’ve seen a million things try to keep her down in her life, and she’s done such a great job of just pushing herself.”
The bottom line is that we are thrilled Kelly’s surgery went well and that though challenging, she is recovering nicely.
