Billy Dib knew something was wrong when the pain wouldn’t go away.
He had taken a body shot in the gym, he says, “and I didn’t feel right after the body shot, and the pain was there for a few days afterward. So, I went to the doctor for a checkup. They said there was nothing there and they sent me back home.” The next day, however, when the pain returned “with a vengeance,” he went to the emergency room. That was when he heard the dreaded word. He had cancer.
Initially diagnosed with a case of colon cancer, he was soon told he had Burkitt lymphoma, a highly aggressive form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was told he had just six months to live.
For Dib, a soft-spoken Australian who held the IBF featherweight belt from 2011 to 2013, it was a return of a disease that had already caused him immense trauma.
“My late wife, Sarah, had passed away from cancer in 2015,” he told ProBoxTV. “So, for me to get cancer as well, it was a major shock for me. And I never thought in my wildest dreams that I'd be somebody that would have cancer. But obviously cancer doesn't discriminate.”
On hearing his prognosis, his thoughts immediately turned to someone else.
“I have a three-year-old son,” he explained. “So, to be told that I only have six months to live, I thought, ‘How am I going to leave my son behind?’ So, I resolved to do whatever it took to be there for my son. And that’s what I did.”
The side effects of the chemotherapy he endured left him, he said, in “the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. Ever.” A year later, however, he is free of the disease, and as he speaks, he is waiting to go on stage to be honored at the IBF’s annual convention. Support from the boxing world, as well as the mental strength developed from years of fighting, helped him make it through.
“I wanted to be there for my family and my friends,” he said. “That that's what pushed me to beat this cancer. Having been in tough fights definitely helped. Having been in tough situations in life definitely helped. All of it intertwined to help me beat this cancer.”
Dib briefly retired from the ring in 2018 after losing a super featherweight title tilt to Tevin Farmer, only to return a year later at welterweight against Amir Khan, who knocked him out in four. He put together three more wins to bring his record to 48-6 (27 KOs) when the cancer struck. Now that he is once more cancer-free, the 37-year-old says he is open to maybe one more fight.
“A part of me wants to have one just to go out on my own terms,” he said. “I don't want cancer to be the end of me. I’m not saying that I'm chasing world championships or anything like that, but, you know, maybe I have just one more fight in me. I mean, I've had a great career, I won two world titles. There's not much I could do except, maybe help some other kids achieve their dreams.”
For now, however, he is content to revel in the joy of living a life that he thought was about to be snatched away from him.
“Life is a lot different now,” he explained. “Previously, I wanted the world and everything in it. And now, I just appreciate time. You see, sometimes people die in a car accident, and they never get a chance to tell people that they love them. Never get a chance to reconcile with people. Well, this cancer gave me an opportunity to reconcile with everybody, gave me an opportunity to rectify all the wrongs in my life. And now I live differently. It’s like I've been given a second opportunity to really live in the moment and enjoy every single moment.”
