DOCTORS couldn't figure it out.
Why, they wondered, would a knock Timothy Sim took playing football for Black Rock cause five vertebrae in his back to fracture? Why were his bones so weak?
Tests were ordered and the results were not good. Sim had multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that eats at the bone marrow. It had made his bones no stronger than honeycomb.
The 33-year-old schoolteacher and Rockers stalwart was staggered, unable to comprehend that cancer was striking at him. He'd always been fit and healthy. He said he asked "Why me?" over and over in the weeks after the diagnosis.
"But in the end you have to deal with it," he said last Thursday. "You've got no choice. Luckily you've got a base of family and friends supporting you. I wasn't alone."
This was in May, 2009. On Saturday Sim plays his 200th match for the Rockers, who are marking the occasion with a Call to Arms Day that will raise funds for cancer research.
It is the charity of former Essendon player Adam Ramanauskas, who also fought the disease.
Black Rock players will wear gold socks and their South Yarra opponents will have yellow arm bands.
"A long road," is how Sim describes the period between his diagnosis and his impending milestone.
Twelve months of chemotherapy preceded stem-cell transplants last September.
At one point he was also overcome with depression, thinking himself worthless because he couldn't do anything and that he was a burden to the people helping him.
"I probably went through it for a couple of months," he said.
"Your life stops. You're in and out of hospital every second day. There are blood tests, appointments with doctors. My fiancée at the time (Stephanie) had to take a couple of months off work. It gets the better of you."
The transplants, at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, involved taking four litres of blood from an unrelated bone marrow donor and using the stem cells to fight the cancer in Sim's blood and boost his immune system.
It flattened him. There were days when he struggled to walk to the letterbox. The couch was a comfort.
Slowly he got better and he said football played a part in his recovery. He'd been at Black Rock for 14 years and he felt the game had been "ripped away" from him. He wanted it back.
"The football club has always been very important to me," he said.
"I've been there so long and when suddenly you can't play any more it messes with your head. It's another thing you lose, another thing that gets taken away from you."
Last year the Rockers were struggling to fill their reserves team. In between his treatment Sim helped out for two games, standing in a forward pocket "just to make up a number".
After the transplants the doctors said it would be OK for him to play football again (he is on medication that helps strengthen his bones). But the ordeal had ravaged his body. When he trained with the Rockers last December he could run for only 50m before needing a breather. Gradually his fitness returned, and on April 9 he made his 199th appearance.
It was a special day. Four hours after coming off the ground he married Stephanie at Xavier College.
People told him he was mad to play football on his wedding day, that he could be injured and everything would have to be called off. But arrangements had been made to play his 200th game at Black Rock and he didn't want to break them.
All went well, and he even got a mention on the Coodabeen Champions, who related that the great EJ Whitten also played on the day he got hitched. Sim was thrilled to hear it.
He can't wait for his double-century match. But as his life returns to normal he says he looks forward to every day, appreciating good health.
It could be raining outside, he said, but he only sees sunshine.
"I took a lot of things for granted," Sim said.
"It's not until you go through something like this that you realise what you've got is more than enough."
"My friends helped me out so much, with meals, driving me around, making phone calls. It's easy to forget those people when you're healthy. We should remember every day is a good day."
Last Modified on 13/05/2011 14:34