Category: Cancer

Keeping fit cuts cancer risk by 75%

That’s quite a headline from The Times newspaper on May 6th.

The piece covered research by the John Hopkins University School of Medicine which surveyed 49,000 people and concluded that the fittest people have the best survival rate from bowel and lung cancer. The article can be found here.

Despite being treated for prostate cancer, I am otherwise fit and well. Very fit for my age in fact. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for this level of fitness which I know is helping me cope with my cancer treatment. It’s only recently I’ve achieved this level of fitness: I used to simply dabble in ‘token’ exercise. Mine is a familiar tale but here’s how I moved things up a gear to get to the point I am now: feeling fit, healthy and ready for radiotherapy.

Working long hours is not an excuse for not exercising. In 1998, I was working long hours and travelling a lot. The company I enjoyed working for was in deep trouble. Exercise was the last thing on my mind. What down time I had, I spent with my family. I would, however, get a couple of mountain bike rides in at the weekend and if I was travelling, spend 30 minutes in the hotel gym before breakfast. My fitness was no more than ticking over.

We lived in the commuter belt for New York and I was aware that people were attending spin classes at 5am but I was simply too tired. Well, that was the excuse I made.

We returned to the UK in 2001 and I was determined to start a fitness regime. I would go to the gym two days a week before work and made up my own, pretty amateurish, routine. I was in my forties and I trying to combat a bit of a bulging tummy and give tone to what muscle I had. It was just adequate, and I combined it with mountain biking and an occasional round of golf. However, most of that was sacrificed when I set up my own company in 2009.

Discovering fitness classes I’ve tried yoga, pilates and box fit type classes on holiday and enjoyed them but never really thought about attending regularly at home as the times didn’t work. I was lucky enough to be able to retire at 63 (18 months ago) and set about getting really fit. At that point, I had two other objectives: improving my coordination and balance. I joined a local gym and thought I would try some classes. I quite liked the sound of the Les Mills BODYCOMBAT class as I thought it would be similar to box fit. In fact, its nothing like it, but instead a high-energy, martial arts-inspired non-contact workout that has you punching, kicking and striking your way to fitness. It has improved my balance and coordination no end. I was fortunate to find a terrific and inspirational instructor in Lisa who has also become a highly supportive friend. I’ve made two other great friends at the class, Evie and Tara. I soon learnt that Evie was so good and followed the move directions really well, so I positioned myself so I could copy what she was doing. Tara on the other hand, likes me being in the same class as she says I make her look good!

When I first started BODYCOMBAT, I was very self-conscious as I was the only man in a class of around 15. It would have been too easy to give up from embarrassment but my determination to stick with the class has paid off spectacularly. I’m by no means perfect, but I am much more coordinated and much fitter.

The other Les Mills class Lisa teaches is BODYPUMP and with her encouragement I started attending that too. This is a full-body weights workout aimed at getting you lean, toned and fit. Like BODYCOMBAT, it’s set to great music tracks which really help carry you through the workout: particularly the tougher sections! My strength and muscle tone have improved considerably through doing this class. As I have mentioned in a previous blog, the drugs I am taking and the radiotherapy (yet to come) weaken the bones and lead to a loss of energy, strength and muscle mass, so both these classes are ideal. My consultant at the Royal Marsden has expressly recommended I continue with my classes to help offset the physical impact of my treatment: not to mention the great social benefit of exercising with others which also lifts my spirits.

Les Mills Bodypump class

Next week I am away but the great thing about Les Mills classes is they are available throughout the UK (and throughout the world) and through its website I have already identified the time and location of classes close to where I will be staying. My fitness routine is as important to me as brushing my teeth. And as natural!

Les Mills Bodypump class

At this point, I really do need to thank Les Mills for their wonderful support, not least of which included putting me in touch with the David Lloyd Leisure Club in Fulham who have generously offered me free temporary membership so I can continue my BODYCOMBAT and BODYPUMP sessions while undergoing my radiotherapy at the Royal Marsden nearby in Chelsea.

Such gestures mean so much. I’m going into radiotherapy with a plan Mr Cahill, my consultant at the Royal Marsden, has set me some objectives once radiotherapy commences (probably in June) which I have built on.

Les Mills Bodypump class

Here’s the plan!

  • Treat cancer with respect but deal with it like any other illness.
  • Visit an art gallery each day. I will do this with help from my gym buddy Tara and my significant other, Lynda.
  • (I will also attend some cricket matches at Lords!)
  • Keep up my Les Mills BODYCOMBAT and BODYPUMP classes in London
  • Carry on with at least two weekly tennis sessions
  • Continue to play golf twice monthly
  • I have also set myself a goal that in March 2020, I will run the Bath Half Marathon to mark the end of my prostate cancer.

Les Mills Bodypump class

In other news, the wedding venue chosen by Chris and Sophie was stunning, it will be a very special day. I also went on my first mountain bike ride after my op and everything was still intact when I returned! Last week Lynda and I attended a brilliant concert by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. I heard a piece not known to me by Suk, ‘Scherzo Fantastique’, which was very uplifting as was the entire concert. Music is another one of life’s great healers! Next Time In my next blog I am going to deal with the mental anguish caused by being diagnosed with cancer and coming to terms with the fact that one day life will end.

You have cancer

My first encounter with cancer was when I was just eight. A girl and friend of the same age who lived nearby had cancer and I remember visiting her a few days before she died. Perhaps we all have sad and lasting memories like that. Through the years, friends (some in their thirties) and family members have died of the disease, but nothing prepares you to be told, “you have cancer”.

Mind games

I don’t think I’m unduly pessimistic, but the diagnosis of a problem prostate played on my mind. It was either benign or cancerous. There was no middle ground. I looked to the internet for reassurance but ended up scaring myself. The question that returned time and time again was ‘would I be alive to see my son’s wedding in May 2020?’

It was also a very difficult time for those around me, as I became extremely withdrawn. I had no other mental capacity, other than to think about my fate. I struggled to be cheerful even though it was Christmas time. I know it was tough on Lynda, my significant other, as well as my children.

That January day came when the Macmillan nurse confirmed cancer. That was a very lonely moment despite the support I knew I could rely on. I just had to get on with it. The next worry was whether it had spread to the lymph nodes or my bones, known as metastatic cancer. If it had gone into the bone it couldn’t be cured, ‘just managed’, whatever that meant. What I needed was a bone scan.

How do you tell your children you have cancer?

My immediate concern was how to tell my children. Like any parent, I want to protect them, but I agonised over whether to tell them or not, at least until I knew the degree of cancer I had. I concluded the sooner they knew the better. I rang them both and there was a mixture of shock and upset. In many ways those phone calls are the most difficult thing I have ever done.

The scans – fears and doubts

I needed a bone scan to confirm whether the cancer had spread. I first needed to be injected with a radioactive dye and then had to wait two hours for it to circulate. I used that time for some retail therapy, which helped!

The scan took 40 minutes or so and it was imperative that I didn’t move. When it was all over, I asked the radiotherapist if the scans were ok. What I meant was were the images clear. However, she thought I was asking whether the cancer had spread, and she replied flatly that she couldn’t say. In my mind I asked myself whether she knew that the cancer had spread. I tried to read her body language and my mind raced with thoughts. Those thoughts continued to haunt me through the next few days. The Macmillan nurse rang me to say there was a suspicious shadow on my pelvic bone, but she needed to refer it back to the consultant. I feared the worst.

A week later Lynda and I were in Padstow on holiday. My phone rang and it was the nurse to say my cancer had not spread. We cried with joy.

It wasn’t all rosy though.  Soon afterwards I had the first consultation with Mr Cahill my urology consultant. He looked at the MRI and Bone scans and concluded that the cancer was not straightforward. He thought it had spread into the neck of the bladder and wanted me to have a PET scan.  My imagination took over once again. Once more, that question, would I be alive for my son’s wedding? A PET scan is very similar to a bone scan but with different definition. Radioactive liquid is injected into the veins, there’s a wait for it to circulate and then one lies still for 40 minutes while the machine goes into action. One compensation was that I could play music to partially drown out the large mechanical noise of the scanning magnets. Thank you, Spotify!

More days passed; my mind continued to race. Then relative relief came when Mr Cahill confirmed my cancer was advanced but localised. It had not spread beyond the prostate.

Acceptance and Purpose

Life is so much easier when you realise there are things that you can change and things that are just beyond your control. That’s acceptance and I don’t pretend it’s easy.

What if my cancer had spread? I looked in the mirror and realised that whatever the outcome, I was going to die one day. All of us know that, but having to stare it in the face is an entirely different matter. This year, next year, in a decade… that day will certainly arrive.

A book called ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ by Viktor Frankl has helped. The author survived a number of Nazi Concentration Camps including Auschwitz. He tells of companions who just gave up but also of how survivors built purpose and meaning into their suffering. I cannot hope to do the book justice in this blog, but it was written in 1946 and is still in print. I found it both sobering and helpful. It puts things in context.

Talking of context, I feel lucky to have had this scrape with cancer because it could have been so much worse. To some extent I’ve created my own luck by keeping fit, by insisting that something was wrong to my GP and by dealing with my condition with thoroughness. I am humbled because not everyone has the knowledge or capacity to do what I have done, but there are no guarantees for the future.

Live life

Despite all my efforts and the wonderful health professionals taking care of me, I know that my cancer can return even if I’m cured.  

I know of a very wealthy investment manager who wanted for nothing. He and his wife had huge plans for ‘one day’. But that day never came as she died suddenly. I’m not saying live every day as your last, but I am saying get on with making those plans a reality while you can, because the fateful day is an inevitability.

I have lots of plans this year including my first ever 3-day pop festival (part of Lynda’s birthday celebrations) but more of that to come in future blogs.

In other news

I took my daughter Catherine and her fiancé, David, for a meal in London on Wednesday. We went to a Peruvian restaurant. Why Peruvian? It has great memories for all of us and it was where Lynda and I went last year on what was the most memorable and exciting adventure. Its not often my kids have been somewhere I haven’t, but that list is beginning to grow. As I said earlier its time to make some plans and go!

Next time

I have an appointment with Mr Cahill, and I can happily report to him that I am peeing like a teenager and the pain has gone. I am looking forward to seeing him and the other fantastic staff at the Royal Marsden. I will report back what they say…