Less Than A Year After Shock Brain Cancer Diagnosis, Max Nelson Is Back On Skis And Aiming For Another Paralympics

Max Nelson kept getting bad headaches. He thought his sinuses might be causing them, but even after he was prescribed antibiotics, the headaches returned. 

Looking to get more answers, Nelson went in for a CT scan last March — only a few days after celebrating his 21st birthday and one year before the start of the Paralympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, which he hoped to compete in as a cross-country skier. 

The results from his CT scan were so alarming that he wasn’t allowed to go home that day. His primary physician called to inform him that a tumor the size of a tennis ball was growing in his brain, and it needed to be removed immediately. 

Nelson’s father was sitting beside him when he learned that he had brain cancer. His father tried his best to calm Nelson down, but the news was so unexpected and heavy that Nelson started shaking uncontrollably. 

“There were so many feelings that were going through my body at that time because it’s such a big…” Nelson said, pausing to search for the right word to describe it. “We just didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect that at all. So, yeah, I was just completely, oh man, I couldn’t even talk. I was so like — I don’t even know what the word is. I was just so nervous, stressed and all those type of bad feelings, and it was just rough to hear that, it really was.” 

What started as a possible sinus infection turned into something much bigger for Nelson, a visually impaired skier on the U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing development team and a native of Grant, Minnesota. 

Three years after making his Paralympic debut at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing as a high school senior, Nelson was unable to talk, walk or use the right side of his body after having emergency brain surgery. He relied on his faith and strong support system to fight through it. 

He’s now back on skis and hoping to make an incredible run to qualify for his second Winter Paralympics this March in Milano Cortina. 

In early December, Nelson joined his U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing teammates in Canmore, Alberta, to compete in the first world cup event of the season. He’ll next race at another world cup in Finsterau, Germany, in mid-January to help bolster his chances of making the Winter Paralympics. 

“It would mean a lot to me,” Nelson said of qualifying for Milano Cortina. “I don’t know if I will. I don’t even know if I’m close to making it, but if I do, I just will thank the Lord above because it’s honestly a miracle that I would even be there with everything I’ve had to go through.” 

Nelson, who attends the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota, was admitted into Children’s Minnesota hospital in Minneapolis on March 13, with the surgery to remove the tumor from his brain scheduled for the following week. 

His family, friends, members of his church and a couple of priests visited him in the hospital and helped him get over the initial shock of hearing that he had cancer. He also felt more hopeful after meeting with the surgeon who was going to perform the operation. 

“I guess it didn’t really help me relax when I talked to him about it because, I mean, it’s crazy to think he’s going to be in my brain,” Nelson said. “But he was very well known and a good surgeon, so I had a lot of trust in him and in faith in him.” 

Nelson still didn’t fully grasp just how much of a toll the procedure would take on his body. He wanted to get back to skiing, and he asked the surgeon how long he would need to wait after the operation before he could ski again. Would it be like a week or two? 

“(The surgeon) looked at my dad, and he just smiled,” Nelson said. “I didn’t realize how long that was going to be.” 

Nelson said he doesn’t remember the first week after the surgery — other than a minute here and there. It felt like he was in a dream. 

When he awoke, Nelson was unable to speak for the first couple of weeks after the surgery. And since the entire right side of his body was numb, he couldn’t use his hand to write messages to communicate with people. He managed to say “yes” a few times. 

As it turned out, Frank Sinatra helped Nelson learn to speak again. 

Nelson was in his hospital room one day when he heard music playing. He recognized the song, and his speech pathologist asked him if he knew who was singing it. 

“And then I said, ‘Frank Sinatra,’ which is quite crazy to think I said that because that’s not an easy word to say,” Nelson said. “So, (the speech pathologist) was like, ‘What?’ And then she tried to get me to say more, and then I couldn’t. It was so weird. It’s so hard to describe to people what that was like. It was crazy to go through that.” 

After spending nearly two months in the hospital, Nelson was able to go home on May 4. 

Nelson shared with his Instagram followers the totality of his cancer fight. He wrote, “Nothing could prepare me for what was to come: 8-hour brain surgery, 2 months of intense therapies, 30 sessions of radiation, and I’m still standing strong.” 

Nelson started doing physical therapy only a few days after his surgery, but he was still unable to walk. In mid-April, he took his first steps using a cane and with someone holding onto him, so he didn’t fall. 

He worked over the summer to move his body and get back into shape. He went running a couple of times and exercised on an elliptical machine and a SkiErg. He then showed even more progress in his recovery when he got on roller skis for the first time during the week before the Fourth of July. 

“When your whole right side goes numb, sometimes it doesn’t come back. So, that’s why I felt relieved when I could start feeling all the sensation coming back,” Nelson said. “I was able to start skiing, and once I got that, it was just a grind trying to be able to get back to where I was before. And I’m not even close right now, but I’m still working on it.” 

Nelson was age 17 when he left for the Beijing Winter Paralympics and celebrated his 18th birthday the day after the Opening Ceremony. He then earned three top-15 finishes in Beijing, with his best finish coming when he placed ninth as a member of the U.S. 4x2.5-kilometer open relay team. 

Nelson said he should learn in February on whether he has qualified for Milano Cortina, and as much as he’s pushing for it, he admitted he’s not too worried about it given everything he has endured over the past year. 

“I just I feel blessed every single day because, like I said, I didn’t even know if I was going to be able to walk again,” Nelson said. “So, I’m incredibly just blessed to where I am right now to be able to even ski, race and to do everything I love. So, I’m extremely grateful for where I am now.” 

Alex Abrams has written about Olympic and Paralympic sports for more than 15 years, including as a reporter for major newspapers in Florida, Arkansas and Oklahoma. He is a freelance contributor to USParaNordic.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.