Wellington Phoenix wingback Carlo Armiento has revealed he was diagnosed with stage two Hodgkin’s lymphoma in March 2024.
The 26-year-old was in his second season at Brisbane Roar when, in March 2024, a persistent cough led to a chest X-ray and the discovery of a nine-centimetre mass in his lung, and his cancer diagnosis.
In collaboration with Professional Footballers Australia (PFA), Armiento has shared the details of his diagnosis and road to recovery; having received the all clear from his doctors, he’s approached the early weeks of his first season at the Phoenix with a new lease on life.
Armiento has played three consecutive 90-minute games for the ‘Nix, and has scored two goals.
Armiento’s story – in his own words
On the 14th of March 2024 I was diagnosed with stage two Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
It was pretty crazy because you hear a lot of stories about people getting diagnosed with cancer, but you never think it’s going to happen to yourself.
It started when I had a cough for a month. I’d taken all of these medications to try to get rid of the cough. I was sick at one stage so maybe they thought it was long Covid, but it came to a point where I had a lot of reflux and I was choking when I was coughing.
Funnily enough my teammate at the time was (Phoenix forward) Nikola Mileusnic and he was on my back saying, ‘Carlo there’s something wrong, you need to go get checked’.
So, I went to get an X-ray at Brisbane, when I was there, and they found a nine-centimetre mass inside my lung and at the time I thought it was nothing, it was just maybe a virus or something, not cancer-related.
Then I went to the oncologist and he simply asked me, ‘What do I think it is?’ And I said, ‘I’m not quite sure’, and he goes ‘I’ll give you the two options. It’s either option one which is Hodgkin’s lymphoma or option two, well, I don’t really want to tell you that option’.
When he told me that, the first thing I said was ‘When can I play football again?’ He said, ‘Don’t worry about football’. I think that’s the first time I’ve probably broken down there and then, because when you hear cancer, you think your life’s ending.
I had to have a biopsy the next day and for one week, I was waiting for my results. That was probably the worst week of my life because I was just in my bed waiting for the phone to ring and waiting to hear if it was, not the good option but, the option we were hoping for. I got that call and he told me that I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and the process started from there.
Firstly, I had to see an oncologist and then he referred me to a haematologist, and he went through everything. He was like ‘If you need to get a cancer this is probably the best cancer to get’ which was hard to take at the time because, I don’t know, cancer is cancer.
I went back to Adelaide and started my treatment on the 5th of April. It was two months of chemotherapy every second Friday, which is pretty intense.
I was in a room with people who were virtually on their deathbed, which was pretty sad to watch. I got talking to a couple of them, and some people have months to live or weeks and then I’m there, just a 24-year-old, fit, or was fit, healthy guy who was playing professional soccer at the time. That really opened my eyes. It was pretty scary to be honest.
But the whole process was pretty straightforward when I got into the groove of things. The first three days after chemo were pretty tough and challenging. I didn’t really move from the couch, but after that I was running, exercising and going to the gym. I didn’t really have an immune system, so I had to do everything by myself.
I had two months of that, and then I had to have a rescan and from the rescan they’ve seen that the mass had pretty much gone. On the 7th of June I got the good news that I was pretty much in remission, but they still wanted to do 13 days of radiotherapy.
So, I did radiotherapy for 13 days straight and that was a mind-opening experience. I still have three tattoos where they tattooed me because every day I went in, it took literally five minutes, they line me up on the machine and they zap me and then I go home. It was a pretty life-changing experience.
Now looking at it I’m grateful I got through it, but, like I said before, I wanted to tell this story because there are people on the other side thinking this is the end or there’s no way out, and if you look at me I’ve come out of it and now I’m just happily playing what I want to do.
Once I got past knowing what cancer it was and the treatment, the next thing on my mind was obviously my football career because I didn’t play for the last two months of the season and everyone was asking ‘Where’s Carlo, where’s Carlo?’ as I wasn’t playing. At the time, no one knew what I was going through.
When I was in remission and I was doing pre-season by myself, I had my old strength and conditioning coach from Perth help me out because I was on my own, and I didn’t really have support from any other club.
He put together a programme for me which got me, not professionally fit, but up and running and going for kicks. And then I got a call from an agent in Italy to go over there. It was just the right time for me to head overseas and get away from Australia at this point because I’d just gone through so much and I was run down a little bit.
I went over to Italy and I enjoyed my time there but it was the right time to come back this year because I’d gotten away from all of the cancer talk. Now I’ve come back and I’m loving my time at Wellington.
It is just the perfect time to come out and tell this story, not for people to know what was going on, it’s for others for people who are suffering what I was suffering and think ‘Shit, he can get through it, so can I’.
I’m now feeling the best I’ve felt. I said to a few people yesterday that it’s the first time I’ve ever played back-to-back 90 minutes in my life so I think that just speaks for itself.
Physically I’m all good. I had a one-year check-up with the doctor before the pre-season started and he said I’m all clear, nothing is looking alarming. I think I’ll get it checked in four or five years’ time just to double-check nothing has come back. But physically and mentally, it’s the best I’ve been for a long, long time.
I’m happy I’ve got through it and I’m enjoying football and life again. Going through it has made me stronger because I just don’t get fazed by anything now. If I have a bad training, so be it. If I have a bad game, so be it. There are so much worse things going on in this world.
Sitting in that ward and sitting there for five hours every Friday getting chemo was just life-changing. You’re like ‘Wow, there’s other things than having a bad pass or having a bad game’.
I think that’s helped me now. So far I’ve done quite well at the Phoenix and that’s a big contributor because I just go out there every day, every training, every game I just want to have fun because I know on the other side of life, there can be some bad times.
