Sale Sharks called it “illness”. Courtney Lawes has now said what it was: a staph infection in his blood that kept him in hospital for 10 days.
“I’ve still got an IV in,” the former England captain told James Haskell on The Good, The Bad & The Rugby. “So I’m still on IV antibiotics till Thursday and then I’ll start like return to play and whatnot.”
He is 37 and on a one-year deal at Sale, where he went to win back his England place. Does he play again before Christmas, or is this season already slipping away? Tell us in the comments.
How did Courtney Lawes end up in A&E?
It started on a Saturday. He had spent the day working at a Continental Tyres Schools Cup event, on painkillers. On the way home, his right arm stopped working.
By Sunday morning he had a high fever and muscle pain all over. He rang Sale’s medical team. They thought flu. So did he. The plan was to see the club doctor on Monday.
He never got there. That night his wife, Jess, told him he had to go to hospital. He saw a doctor at about 1am.
Lawes says the message that came back with his blood results was blunt: “Your infection markers are through the roof, you need to stay in.” He got into a bed at 4am.
Where does he think the infection came from?
It took until the Wednesday to get an answer. Staph. The bacteria sit on most people’s skin and do nothing. Lawes said the danger comes when it gets into the blood and reaches the heart, the lungs or the spine.
He has a theory about how it got in. Somebody stood on his foot and ripped it open, and the cut never healed properly. That is his guess. No doctor has said so publicly.
Every forward knows that cut. Studs down the top of the foot, a bit of tape, back out on Monday. Nobody gives it a second thought.
A week into his stay, a doctor told him one blood reading had hit 240. Normal is under five. He also waited three days for anything stronger than paracetamol.
When will Courtney Lawes play again?
Nobody has put a date on it. Lawes said he would take it day by day. Sale and director of rugby Alex Sanderson have not given a timeline.
He missed the trip to Bath on 31 October, when the club listed him as out through illness. On his own account he was in a hospital bed at the time, on a drip.
He was asked if it could have killed him. “I wasn’t anywhere near dying or anything like that,” Lawes said.
Then came the line that should worry Sale fans more. He says his pre-season has been “deleted” and he has to start again.
England’s coaches gave him five weeks and no promises back in September. Now he is starting from zero.
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