BRISTOL, Tenn. – Matt Tifft remembers waking up in the middle of the night in the Intensive Care Unit following his brain surgery. The television was on and the XFINITY Series race at Daytona was playing.
Tifft went right back to sleep that night — but getting back to the track hasn’t been far from his mind since then.
“It’s great to see everyone,” Tifft said Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed being at the race track … I don’t know that I’ve ever stayed away from a race track that long.”
The 20-year-old developmental XFINITY driver for Joe Gibbs Racing underwent surgery July 1 to remove a low-grade, benign brain tumor, and has been sidelined from the race track since. Poised and in good spirits, Tifft thoroughly explained the difficult recovery he’s endured for the past month and a half.
“I got this nice scar over here,” Tifft said, gesturing to a long scar on his head. “They got as much (of the tumor) as they could out. The way they best describe it is a wet cotton ball in a cup of water, basically. So, they can pull out as much as they can but there’s always going to be a couple strands left in. … But they were able to go in and do a fairly aggressive surgery and get the most out as possible.
“But one of the most shocking things to me was apparently with a brain tumor, one of the symptoms is a loss of smell. So, I came downstairs the Monday after I had my surgery and my mom, she was washing something with Murphy’s Oil (Soap). I guess I couldn’t smell things for years and it just hit me and it made me nauseous and all of a sudden I just started smelling everything. I was like, ‘My goodness, I can’t believe this.’ “
Scent wasn’t the only sense regained following Tifft’s recovery. He quickly realized how much the tumor had affected details of every day life on many levels.
“The first couple weeks getting back, I could do 30 minutes more of activity without getting too worn out,” Tifft recalled. “What I would figure out, though, is every day I had new experiences — going to the mall, walking around, things that you think are just so normal to everybody – all of a sudden, those things were stressful situations. … It was just fascinating getting to learn about that. And every day I got stronger and better and to the point where I was able to start driving a street car again, get back to normal life, basically. After that, I was able to get back to a normal physical activity level.”
While the process has been wearisome at times, it also has afforded Tifft the opportunity to connect with others who either have gone through brain surgery, themselves, or have children who have undergone a similar process.
“It really puts things in perspective,” Tifft said. “I think sometimes we get lost in this world of NASCAR, sometimes we get trapped in a bubble a little bit with that, and you get hit with something like this and it’s shocking but then you realize with other people, there’s a whole lot more that could be going wrong. It just makes you appreciate things a lot more.”
With a new outlook — and regained sense of smell — Tifft finally climbs behind the wheel Sunday with doctor’s approval for the first time since his procedure, as he tests a late model at Hickory Speedway.
“I think I will be smiling from ear to ear,” Tifft said. “I can’t tell you how excited I am to strap back in the seat. It will be a really great feeling.”
But perhaps a better feeling will be eventually getting back into a stock car, the thought that has kept Tifft going since July.
“You get that realization that this is not going to be tomorrow that I’m going to be OK, this is going to take some time and in the beginning that took a while to really understand that,” Tifft said. “There were definitely some times where you’re bummed out and you just want things to go back to normal. Then you just have to keep telling yourself that you have to do everything necessary to get back to that point.
“My goal from the get-go is to get back in the race car. … The reason I was able to stay so positive and so driven was the one goal of getting back in the car.”