It’s a miracle Alex Smith is with us today after one of the worst injuries in NFL history left the former QB fighting for his life battling flesh-eating bacteria and sepsis, but 17 surgeries later, he’s hoping for another miracle, this time for his daughter.
Just 13 months after Smith retired from the league, he and his wife Elizabeth’s 7-year-old daughter Sloane was rushed to the hospital and had surgery to remove a malignant brain tumor.
Per The New York Times who broke the bad news in the first public story about Sloane’s condition, surgeons were unable to remove 100% of the tumor during the first surgery in 2022, and were then forced to perform a second 10-hour craniotomy earlier this year.
“We found out last fall that essentially that they had missed a piece,” doctors stated. “There was a little piece in there left over.”
Smith reflected on how though his battle with his medical trauma was tough, it has in no way prepared him for the fight to save his daughter and has left him “feeling helpless.”
“It’s different when it’s your little girl,” Smith told The Times, “and you’re helpless with how terrifying that is. You just have no idea what it means. The words brain tumor are terrifying.”
Elizabeth Smith shared an Instagram post with a video showing photos and clips of Sloane in the hospital and with her brothers and parents. “Over the past year, our daughter Sloane has been a little fighter. From 2 brain surgeries, therapies, countless MRI’s, blood draws, EEG’s, pokes, prods and a million doctors appointments,” Elizabeth Smith wrote. “One thing we know is she continues to fight and never lets her light dim. She shines bright and doesn’t let anything hold her down. “Never does a parent expect to fight this battle. No parent is prepared to hear those words. But we continue to fight. Fight for advancements in medicine, fight for all the other families going through similar if not worse battles and fight for our baby girl.” Elizabeth Smith also mentioned her husband’s charity ride. It’s something tangible the former Chiefs star could do for Sloane. Before starting the bicycle trip around Massachusetts, Smith told the Boston Herald he and Elizabeth were living “scan to scan.” What’s Your KCQ? “It never goes very far in your mind as a parent,” he said, later adding, “It’s not something you ever anticipate going through.” While Smith knows hospitals all too well from his inspiring return for the leg injury, it’s a different story to be in the waiting room. “I don’t know if you get any better at it. This is something that’s so much bigger and harder,” Alex Smith told the Times. “Do you get better at compartmentalizing? I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m not sure.”
When Smith announce his retirement in April of 2021, he noted, “I’m going to take a little time to enjoy a few of those walks with my wife, and my kids have no idea what’s coming for them in the backyard (games).”
We’re sure Sloane didn’t take any of those games for granted.
