He was on steroids post treatment as well. Chemotherapy likes to cause anemia. In fact I think that’s where I first heard of EPO. Some survivor crowing about the efficacy at making them feel human again.

And they’ve discovered in more recent studies that steroid use has effects that last about twice as long as it’s detectable in your body (2 vs 1 year?). If sports weren’t such a young person’s game, I’d worry about people taking off for “surgery” and coming back built like a linebacker but testing clean.