A victim of leukemia, Matt Bessette says ‘every day was a struggle’

If anyone’s a natural born killer, it’s Matt Bessette.

Bessette, a Bellator MMA veteran, chooses to fight now, but was forced to fight during his childhood. At only the age of three, Bessette developed a life-threatening case of leukemia, a white blood cell cancer most common in adults.

It was far from a typical childhood for him.

“Every day was a struggle,” Bessette told BloodyElbow.com’s The MMA Circus. “I remember quite a bit of it, actually. Stuff that has a big effect on you, whether positively or negatively, throughout your life, you will remember those things like they were just yesterday. And that’s the case when I had leukemia. I remember a lot of the situations where I had spinal taps. I remember coming out of the medicine that they gave me when I was put under. I remember the feeling, I remember seeing my mother every time. I was only three, four years old when that happened and it’s very clear in my mind. It was obviously a tough time in my life but it molded me into the juggernaut that I am today. It’s how I live my life; if something sucks right now, just go through it and come out stronger on the other side.

“100% I knew what was going on. A lot of it had to do with my mom just telling me. She didn’t keep anything from me. She told me how it was. ‘Matthew, you’re sick today but tomorrow you’re going to be better than today, and then the following day you’re going to be better than the next day,’ and this and that. She always talked to me, she’s always super positive. And it made me the positive person that I am today.”

Doctors gave Bessette a fifty-fifty chance of surviving. It’s hard to imagine that if Bessette didn’t have positivity and good luck on his side, his entire mixed martial arts career — and life — could be nonexistent.

“It is, it’s very crazy,” he said. “All the props go to the doctors that knew what they were doing. I’m alive because of them and because of the positive vibe around me. It kept me positive. The older people get, they get cancer sometimes, and they have negative thoughts that run through their minds. When you’re younger, everything’s positive. That’s kind of how I was living every single day. I was sick, I felt like crap, but at the back of my mind, I knew I was going to get better, and I did.”

Bessette was finally leukemia-free approximately eight years later. That said, it wasn’t quite the end of the prolonged situation. Although healthy, regularly had his internal organs checked and was constantly on medicine.

“They finally cleared me and said I was cancer-free at 11-years-old,” he said. “I don’t know exactly how long I was living inside the hospital, but I had a port in my chest even when I exited the hospital. I was walking around with things that roll around, that are attached to your chest and constantly feeding you medicine and checking your vitals and what not. It was a process for sure, but I lived a very normal life outside that. I played sports, even when I was sick, I still played sports. I played video games all the time, I hung out with my friends. It was just, I was sick, that’s all.”

Bessette has one piece of advice for anyone currently battling a disease, whether leukemia, another form of cancer, or something completely different.

“Smile,” he said. “Smile every day. Go out of your way to smile. Go out of your way to enjoy what’s around you, to enjoy the people around you. The doctors that are working hard to make …

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