Sitting in a doctor’s office, after being told that a routine MRI had detected a four-centimeter mass on one of his kidneys, time didn’t exactly stand still for the Richmond Kickers’ Matthew Delicate, but it certainly seemed to slow to a crawl.

“It’s very surreal, the whole experience,” Delicate said this week. “I remember it was like a back-corner room and they came in and told me what it was and then they left me alone for what seemed like a very long time, just to sit there with my fiancée trying to take it all in. I felt like I probably sat there for 45 minutes or so, just sitting in the room, and it was a surreal moment, for sure. Eye-opening.”

Delicate had been diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma, or kidney cancer, and for the first time in his career would require surgery. For the 34-year-old, the diagnosis came as a shock. After all, he’d only been to get an MRI after a training ground injury. In a way, though, the timing couldn’t have been much better, with the diagnosis a positive one for a full recovery.

“The prognosis was good. [Dr. Charlie Jung] seemed confident that they would take care of everything,” Delicate said. “I had room for optimism, but obviously it was pretty shocking.”

With fiancée Patricia at his side both at home and through her job at the hospital as a nurse – “she was making sure I was getting special attention and was being taken care of,” said Delicate – the surgery took place on June 3. Everything went according to plan, with the surgery being completed quickly, and Delicate soon back in his room to recuperate.

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That recuperation wasn’t the most pleasant, though, at least for the first few days. As part of the surgery, carbon dioxide was pumped into his body, allowing space for the surgery to take place safely. As a result, Delicate had to deal with the residue CO2 in his body, which made it painful to move.

“I could feel it in my shoulders and different areas. It was very painful,” Delicate said. “They were like, ‘you need to get up and walk around; it’s going to help get it out of your system.’ The first time I had to stand up, I think it was the day after the surgery, they wanted me to get up which was something I didn’t want to do. It was very painful. Each time I did it, it slightly improved, but it was very uncomfortable.”

Two days after the surgery, Delicate was well enough to return home. A month later, as the Kickers embarked on a run of form that pushed them into the playoffs for a sixth consecutive season, Delicate began his road to recovery with light work on an exercise bike and in the swimming pool. The follow-up diagnosis came through, and showed the growth to have been benign, giving Delicate a clean bill of health. Right around the time the side hosted its exhibition on July 16 against the Premier League’s Swansea City, he was able to start getting back onto the training field.

“The whole time I was lying in bed, I was thinking about trying to get back on the field for this season,” Delicate said. “I know some people thought I might not get back on the field this season, but I always had that in the back of my mind, so once I was given the all-clear to get back out there, I was really trying to push to try and get my fitness back.”

That push to regain fitness hit a snag when a stress reaction in Delicate’s shin was diagnosed, pushing his recovery back about two weeks. But on August 27, with the Kickers up 1-0 on Orlando City B at City Stadium, Delicate made his return to the field to a large ovation from the home crowd.

“It was great,” Delicate said. “It was definitely an emotional appearance for me. It’s definitely up there in the memories I’ve had throughout the years.”

While the growth was diagnosed as benign, though, the experience has left a mark on Delicate. While he had suffered a broken jaw in 2007, nothing he had gone through in his soccer career prepared him for the experience of being told he needed surgery for potential kidney cancer.

“Once I had that diagnosis, I took a step back and it wasn’t so much the worrying about playing and being on the field; it was more a case of thinking about my family and my life in general,” Delicate said. “It kind of puts things in perspective for you. I’ve been very fortunate to play soccer for a long time, and I’ve never taken that for granted. I’ve seen many players go down to bad injuries throughout the years, and I saw my career ending, so I’m very fortunate to have played as long as I have done, and it enabled me to take a step back and put things in perspective of how lucky I am.”

Now available for selection again, and back to play a leadership role in the Kickers’ locker room, Delicate is hoping the Kickers can build on their strong second half of the season, and make a run toward a championship next month.

“Every player that steps on the field at the beginning of the season, that’s their ultimate goal, and a lot of players can go a whole career without doing that,” Delicate said. “It’s what some of us older guys the locker room try and make the younger guys understand that these opportunities are few and far between, and before you know it you can be an old guy like me with not many chances left.

“Hopefully they can understand the importance of it, and we can have a great playoff run.”