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<\/p>\nThis was the Alex Smith comeback years in the making.<\/p>\n
He had endured a gruesome compound fracture in his right leg that led to a life-threatening infection but persisted through all of it to make a triumphant return to the N.F.L. Months later, in the spring of 2021, he stood with his family on a slope in Big Sky, Mont., ready for the next part of his life.<\/p>\n
Rehabilitating his injury for his football comeback, Smith said, \u201cwas always just a means to get the rest of my life back.\u201d As a kid, he\u2019d enjoyed the slopes with his parents and siblings. He had not skied since he entered the N.F.L. because his contract barred him from doing so, and he hoped his future could include creating wintry memories with his three children.<\/p>\n
So Smith stood on top of a mountain on a leg rebuilt through 17 surgeries (\u201cor 18,\u201d he said. \u201cI forget at the end,\u201d) and hoped that if he could make it down, he\u2019d get to be the kind of present, active parent that Doug and Pam Smith had been to him.<\/p>\n
He exhaled and safely whooshed downhill. Shortly after, Smith decided to retire from the N.F.L. even though teams still wanted him. His body had recovered and Smith now had time for the life that football had stolen from him. He planned on crushing his sons, Hudson and Hayes, now 12 and 10, in basketball, taking them and his daughter, Sloane, now 7, to school most mornings, and accompanying them on every skiing and snowboarding trip.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Taken No. 1 overall in the 2005 N.F.L. draft (23 picks ahead of Aaron Rodgers), Smith had become a steady starting quarterback for San Francisco, Kansas City and finally Washington, driven initially, he concedes, by a fear of failure. He managed by learning to control what he could.<\/p>\n
The long slog of rehabbing his leg was one of those controllable aspects of his career, and his return from the horrific injury became the defining triumph of Smith\u2019s 16-year professional career. The hill conquered, Smith slipped into an idyllic vision of retirement. The family started building their dream home. He coached Hudson\u2019s flag football team and began doing some football commentary for ESPN.<\/p>\n
It lasted almost a year, until the day in May 2022 that upended everything.<\/p>\n
Sloane had been sluggish earlier, but that night Smith\u2019s wife, Elizabeth, noticed their daughter was not using her right arm and was slurring her words. She screamed for him to call 911.<\/p>\n
Doctors discovered a brain tumor and rushed Sloane in for an emergency craniotomy to remove it. As they rushed her into surgery, Alex Smith felt a new terror.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d never been scared, he said, when doctors mentioned his right leg might have to be amputated. Or when he lined up under center and put that leg in the sights of 300-pound men sent to crush him. Smith still felt like he had some level of control. It was his body on the line.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s different when it\u2019s your little girl and you\u2019re helpless with how terrifying that is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sloane is too young to recall much of her father\u2019s playing career.<\/p>\n
She was 2 years old when Smith had Washington atop the N.F.C. East, hosting the Houston Texans just before Thanksgiving in 2018. He\u2019d lived a couple N.F.L. lives by then \u2014 labeled a draft bust in San Francisco before Coach Jim Harbaugh turned his career around; steadied into a playoff contender and regular Pro Bowl selection in Kansas City before Patrick Mahomes took over.<\/p>\n
Quarterbacking Washington that day, he dropped back on a third-and-9 and two Texans converged, landing on top of him. Smith knew his leg was broken before a fuzzy haze completely enveloped him. He didn\u2019t see pieces of bone jutting through his skin. Elizabeth rose from her seat. She saw Smith grab his leg, but couldn\u2019t tell if he had hurt his ankle or foot. Hudson grabbed her close as workers rushed to wheel a medical gurney onto the field in Maryland.<\/p>\n
Smith endured four separate hospital stays in nine months to save his leg. Hospitals always have an antiseptic odor in the air, one that came to represent for Smith a mixture of hope and angst.<\/p>\n
The familiar scent dredged up those emotions as Smith sat in the hospital during the 10-hour surgery to relieve the pressure on Sloane\u2019s brain. Doctors described her having a slow-growing brain tumor they pointed out for him on her scans.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just have no idea what it means,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThe words brain tumor are terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Smiths greeted Sloane after she woke from sedation after the procedure. She wiggled her right arm and spoke groggily, but clearly.<\/p>\n
The family video called Sloane\u2019s brothers. Sloane recalled that it was Hudson\u2019s 11th birthday. Unprompted, Sloane slowly and melodically sang him \u201cHappy Birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alex Smith called Sloane into the family\u2019s kitchen recently on a day before a new school year dawned.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome here,\u201d he said, pulling her in for a hug.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you wearing your mom\u2019s perfume?\u201d Smith asked, whiffing the air.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Sloane said, smiling sweetly and unconvincingly. \u201cIt\u2019s lotion.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s part of a daily fight the Smiths have largely forfeited. Sloane will find herself in her mom\u2019s makeup or perfume. On one hand, Elizabeth tells Sloane she\u2019s too young to leave the house wearing that stuff. Elizabeth also reminds herself that she wants her children to live their lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe try not to parent them differently,\u201d she said. \u201cBut, I do have a different perspective on kids and their childhood now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doctors were not able to remove Sloane\u2019s entire tumor, which was later found to be malignant, in the first surgery, so she needed a second 10-hour procedure this spring. \u201cWe found out last fall that essentially that they had missed a piece, that there was a little piece in there left over,\u201d Alex Smith said.<\/p>\n
The family lives \u201cscan to scan,\u201d with Sloane\u2019s prognosis. She\u2019s suffered two seizures, Smith said, and the family recently had a meeting with her school about her emergency rescue drug.<\/p>\n
The mind leaps ahead, Smith knows. When his does, he tries returning to the moment. What are the facts? What do we know? What\u2019s the reality?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI spent so many times going down these rabbit holes of what I\u2019ll ever be able to do again and my prognosis,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd what does that do for you? It\u2019s not doing any good and certainly it\u2019s far harder as a parent, but no different.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cI don\u2019t know if you get any better at it. This is something that\u2019s so much bigger and harder. Do you get better at compartmentalizing? I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m not sure.\u201d <\/p>\n Elizabeth projected strength during Alex\u2019s recovery and return, telling herself that she could not be the weak link. \u201cThis is something that I don\u2019t know where the end is,\u201d she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t know because of the rarity of her tumor, when it will pop his head back, if it will pop its head back.\u201d<\/p>\n So the Smiths try to maintain a sense of normalcy and count daily victories, especially those on the way to Sloane\u2019s goal of dancing competitively.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s a little badass,\u201d Elizabeth said, adding: \u201cThey know that you can overcome things, and you can fight through, and you can go back to living your life. Right? They got to go through that journey with their dad. I think it\u2019s probably hopeful for them, right?\u201d<\/p>\n Before her surgeries, Sloane was their most independent child, the one who could be swaddled and then sleep on her own through the night. The Smiths moved her into their bed following the first craniotomy so she could be properly propped up. They relished every late-night smooch and cuddle.<\/p>\n Sloane recently requested to sleep in her own bed the night before the new school year.<\/p>\n Elizabeth Smith noticed the devastation creep onto her husband\u2019s face. She told him it was good that she was working her way back toward her own room again.<\/p>\n The next night, though, Sloane sleepily returned to her parents\u2019 room.<\/p>\n Alex Smith lit up. Fear strangled him early in his N.F.L. career. He tries to now snap himself into the present and control what he can.<\/p>\n He has this time to be the type of father he hoped to be.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Jonathan Abrams<\/span> is a sports reporter for The Times, working on features and general assignment stories. He has covered several N.B.A. finals and the Winter Olympics. More about Jonathan Abrams<\/span><\/p>\n Source: Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"