James Conner Says He Had a Week to Live if Hodgkin's Lymphoma Hadn't Been Caught

Pittsburgh Steelers running back James Conner was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma in 2015, which was caught because he was having trouble rehabbing his torn MCL when he was a junior at Pitt.

They found a tumor in his chest, and the doctor gave Conner some jarring news, claiming he only had a week left to live if left untreated.

"So I get some tests done. I got a tumor surrounding my heart, bro," Conner told rapper Mike Stud on his "Ya Neva Know: ya know what I mean?" podcast. "My heart, I got tumors growing all around it ... Hodgkin's lymphoma. Doctor told me I had about a week left."

"He said, 'You got about a week. If you didn't get this treated, you had about a week, at the rate it was growing.'"

The only way Conner was going to get through this was if he acted quickly and aggressively. He underwent chemotherapy over the coming months, and in May 2016, he revealed that he was cancer free.

Talk about a change of direction in life. One day he's close to his deathbed, and the next he's cancer free, taken in the third round of the NFL Draft, and now the starting running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Life is amazing.