‘I asked if I’d play again, they said just be grateful I’m alive’

Guinness Women’s Six Nations: Scotland v Ireland

Venue: Hive Stadium, Edinburgh Date: Saturday, 26 April Kick-off: 14:30 BST

On the face of it, it’s not the most exhilarating of news stories – rugby player returns to training, now hitting tackle bags – but in Emma Wassell’s case it’s as close to a sporting miracle as you are likely to get.

To recap the story of the 30-year-old, 67-time capped Scotland lock – last September a tumour (mercifully, benign) was discovered in her chest.

Then there was a bleed on the tumour. Then the first surgery to remove part of the tumour. Then a second surgery to remove the rest, a procedure that involved the collapsing of a lung.

She wanted to call out for her mum, but Pauline had died suddenly earlier in the year.

Whenever you hear the phrase ‘rugby family’ being used in the parlance of the game, the temptation is to brand it a cliche, but in Wassell’s case, it’s not.

Her team-mates rallied around her in and out of hospital like a gang of protective sisters.

“The health is very good,” the second row said on the BBC’s Scotland Rugby Podcast. “I’ve been running for four weeks now. I’m able to hit bags and hit the deck.

“I feel ready to keep pushing on. Mentally, I was worried about how I was going to feel doing contact but I’m ready to get stuck in.

“The last thing that really needs to be ticked off is bone-on-bone contact, which we might trickle into very, very soon. We’re honestly a few weeks short of playing.

“I tried very hard to push for the Ireland match [on Saturday] but there was no need to risk it. Focus on the World Cup. There’s so much to play for and I’m so excited.”

Wassell was only 29 when all of this was happening.

Her energy and positivity, her absolute love of the game and her appreciation of what it’s given her, is a sight to behold.

“Everyone’s like, ‘How did you get through?’ I do believe everyone would be the same,” she explains. “You don’t have a choice. When it’s happening to you, you have no choice other than to get through it.

“I’m in a fortunate position. I have so much to fight for. For me, a huge motivator is playing for Scotland.

“The surgeon heard it many times. When I was told I was going to need a sternotomy, I said, ‘I’ll be able to play rugby again, right?’ They’re like, ‘Just be grateful you’re alive’.

“Yes, I had a very serious operation but I believe I’ve been really lucky in this whole situation. I don’t know how you get through it, but you do.

“I always had this bigger picture of, ‘I have been given this shot again to be able to play again’, which I thought at one point was going to be taken away.

Getting the boots on again was the driving force. There’s no naivety here.

Wassell knows there’s still a distance to travel between getting well and getting back in the Test arena.

She doesn’t just want to come back, she wants to come back as a better version of her old self. That alone will be a challenge. Wassell played 54 consecutive games for Scotland at her peak.

“Hopefully this thing has given me a few extra years,” she laughs. “You cannot control your health but everything I’ve been able to control, I believe I’ve done.

“The goal is no sweeter than a World Cup, is it? That’s the ultimate. Some of the girls have given me a bit of stick. ‘You’re just wrapping yourself in cotton wool to get there!'”

The details of her treatment is the stuff of nightmares.

“The scariest bit was when I didn’t know what it was and they didn’t know how they were going to operate so I had to get all these biopsies,” she explains.

“When you’re going through the rib – to make sure that you don’t cause any damage, – you have to collapse a lung to get there.

“When I woke up after, I would say that was one of the hardest moments. My body was in all sorts of pain.

“I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t breathe properly, I had chest drains in which were extremely sore and I was in the high dependency ward in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

“There were a lot of very, very sick people in there and that was when I was scared. I’m almost crying out for… well… I didn’t have my mum there.

“She was a ray of sunshine in a room, a typically embarrassing proud mum. She was always watching me play. Honestly, with binoculars, couldn’t bloody see a thing. Didn’t know the rules. Didn’t matter. She was there, a constant.

“A lot of the reason why I wear a headband was so she could spot me.

“It was hard enough telling my brother about being sick because I didn’t want to put him through that. I would have hated putting my mum through it.”

Enter the Scotland team as auxiliary nurses.

“I live my life with a lot of humour so even when I am lying in my hospital bed with tubes coming out of me, please crack a joke,” she says.

“And they did and sometimes I would crack the joke and they’d be like, ‘Can we laugh? We don’t know’. We’ve been through a hell of a lot. It’s not just me. We’ve been through a huge journey together.”

Wassell joked with them that she’d be back in time for the Ireland game and the reaction was hilarious.

Don’t even think about it, was the hysterical gist. They weren’t emotionally ready for her return. They wouldn’t be able to cope.

So, a warm-up game ahead of the World Cup is the hope and the plan. No matter where it is and no matter who it’s against, it will be special.

The thought of it got her through the most awful time in her life and it feels more real now than at any point since illness got her.