Hall of Fame receiver and ESPN analyst Randy Moss celebrated the completion of his cancer treatment at Atrium Health Levine Cancer Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina by ringing the bell on Saturday.
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He will return to his role as an analyst on ESPN’s “Sunday NFL Countdown” on Sunday before the league’s full Week 1 schedule of games.
Moss, 48, revealed last December that he had been battling bile duct cancer and underwent surgery, called a Whipple procedure, to remove the parts of the affected organs in a six-hour procedure. In an Instagram Live video, he explained that he still needed to go through chemotherapy and radiation treatment after the surgery.
During an interview for ABC’s “Good Morning America” with Robin Roberts earlier this week, Moss shared the experience of his diagnosis and subsequent treatment.
“I just think that when you live your life, you know, a certain type of way of, you know, eating right, taking care of your health, and all of a sudden you get diagnosed with cancer… I was overwhelmed,” Moss said. “It hit like a ton of bricks.”
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Those who have battled cancer or have family and friends who have undergone treatment are familiar with the ringing of the bell to celebrate the end of treatment and, hopefully, a victory in their recovery. The gesture is believed to have originated in 1996 at Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center.
“A rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, Irve Le Moyne, was undergoing radiation therapy for head and neck cancer and told his doctor, Kian Ang, M.D., Ph.D., that he planned to follow a Navy tradition of ringing a bell to signify ‘when the job was done.’
“He brought a brass bell to his last treatment, rang it several times and left it as a donation. It was mounted on a wall plaque in the Main Building’s Radiation Treatment Center.”
