Another year and still here to tell the tale!
It’s incredible how much was packed into 2022 but let’s start with something completely irrelevant but quite funny. I was in the village butchers stood next to a little old lady and we had friends coming round for dinner so I ordered four pieces of fillet steak. The butcher said “That will be £xx” and I, jokingly, said “HOW MUCH?” somewhat incredulously. The little old lady said “If you want the best you have to pay for it” and Nigel, the butcher agreed. I said “I’d now like some of the 2nd most expensive thing you sell, minted lamb chops”. The butcher said “You’re not wrong there” and the little old lady said “If you want the best you’ve got to pay for it”. The other butcher then served the little old lady and she ordered the cheapest thing the butchers sells and the butcher said “That’ll be £xx” and the little old lady said “HOW MUCH?” somewhat incredulously and I said “If you want the best you’ve got to pay for it”. Nigel said “Have you two been rehearsing outside?” and I said “Yes, we’re a well honed double act”. We had everyone in stitches in the shop that morning!
It doesn’t get any funnier than that but I hope you don’t find it too boring.
The highlight of the year was undoubtedly in January with the birth of our Granddaughter, Lumen., the light of our life. When you are living with terminal cancer, milestones like this assume great magnitude and my grandkids mean the world to me. I really didn’t expect to get to see Ethan become a teenager when I was diagnosed in 2017 when he was three but now he’s coming up to ten I think I’m in with a shout. I realise how lucky I am to still be fairly well and stable especially when I’ve seen men diagnosed after me who haven’t been so lucky. Long may it continue.
The start of January saw me setting off on my challenge to run at least 5k every day for a year to raise money for Move Charity who are behind 5k your way a cancer support group linked to parkrun that encourages those living with and beyond cancer to move 5k their way. Apart from the fundraising I’ve also stepped up to become more involved with the core team at Move working on development of 5k Your Way across the UK and Ireland.
The challenge itself led to five TV appearance, numerous Radio interviews, three podcasts and articles in lots of newspapers and journals. This raised the profile of Move and 5kyw enormously and it also did the fundraising the world of good with close to £21,000 raised incl gift aid.
The running was relentless, running no matter what day it was, how ill I felt, even on treatment days when I felt rubbish, what the weather was. I ran in extremes of temperatures from -10c to +35c! I ran whilst on holiday.
A great thing was getting chance to run with friends from all over the country and, on the final day, “Move with Tony day” friends and family joined me and we were filmed by ITV Granada who I did a live interview for in the studio. That was scary! Other friends joined in and ran where they live. People ran in Africa, America, Australia and across Europe. A brilliant way to unite my running friends across the globe.
Top left, the final day. Bottom left running with the amazing Shiv Smith a specialist cancer nurse. Top right with Adam Sharp clinical researcher helping to keep me alive. Middle right with our niece Georgina. Bottom right PhysioPhilip who supported me all year long by doing at least 5k every Friday.
I carried on doing lots of prostate cancer awareness talks. I know that these save lives and they’ve become something I’m very passionate about. However, I get to do some unusual talks to very diverse groups. I’ve even done talks on building sites! The one that stood out most though was supporting my friend Alex McCann with his fundraiser Altrincham Vs Cancer raising funds for The Christie, where I’m treated, when I got to speak to Altrincham Grammar School For Boys Medical Society and then take assembly to encourage the students to become messengers for me and to spread the word about risk to their Fathers, Uncles and Grandfathers.
Well, it was the only way I was ever going to get into a Grammar School!
Another passion has been coaching others and I ran two very successful Couch to 5K courses with well over 40 complete beginners graduating and many going on to become members at my club Styal RC.
I don’t race any more but I still like to be involved in racing so I volunteer to help at RunNorthWest events and do some pace making for them. It gives me lots of pleasure and I get to see friends from the running community that I wouldn’t otherwise as well as helping some runners get PB’s.
Given that my Wife once told me that I was the worst public speaker she’d ever heard it’s remarkable how much public speaking I now do! In 2022 alone I spoke at two national conferences about Prehabilitation for people newly diagnosed with cancer as well as speaking at a local Personalised Care Conference about a patients view of what personalised care looks like. They also let me loose at the Greater Manchester Cancer Conference!
A speaking highlight was talking to the team at the Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton near London. I do some reading of the lay versions of their research funding applications so this was a fantastic opportunity to meet the team and hear all about their research as well as deliver a talk about life living with advanced stage prostate cancer and to give them an insight into the value of their amazing work. After all, they invented the drug Abiraterone that is currently keeping me alive. I also got to have dinner, put the world to rights and run on the Epsom Downs with my friend Adam Sharp from ICR who invited me down. I think there were a few tears in the audience during my talk. I seem to have that effect on people!
May saw a wonderful occasion as my Wife and I finally got to go to a Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace as part of my award in The Queens 2019 birthday honours of the British Empire Medal. Such a shame that the weather was so awful and little did we know at the time that Prince Charles would become King before the year was out.
June was pretty epic as well! Social Media can be a truly awful place but I’m blessed to have met some amazing people via Twitter including the other two of the three Not Dead Yet Men Walking trio. The three of us all living with terminal cancers but still pushing back barriers and doing mad things as well as raising money for charity. This time we met up to climb Snowdon and took some friends along with us. It was much harder than when I’ve done it previously but I guess that 5 years of hormone deprivation therapy had taken a toll.
Also in June I was asked to support the campaign to get the government to agree a 10 year cancer plan as we needed to create a unique opportunity to “Win the Cancer Battle” We managed to create some great publicity but alas it seems to have been to no avail!
July was pretty epic as we celebrated Lumens christening before heading off to our happy place, the Dolomites for a great hiking holiday.
In September I was asked to be part of a working group at Prostate Cancer UK trying to put together a new position statement on screening for prostate cancer in the UK. This is such a vitally important piece of work and I’m delighted that it’s resulted in a much stronger position from the charity to push for screening using the PSA blood test as the starting point.
Also in September came the very sad news of the death of Queen Elizabeth and a national outpouring of love and affection for her.
Also in September was the Greater Manchester Marathon March for men and I was delighted that it would start at my home town football club Altrincham FC. Even more delighted to spend some time with my friend Kevin Webber, another member of the stage 4 PCa club and to be asked to start the March. My lasting memory of the day is that 27 miles is a shed load of a long way and I was totally shattered at the end of it!
Going to watch Altrincham FC has become something that I really enjoy as I get to share it with my Son, Daughter In Law and Grandson who is football crazy!
Back in 2020 I came up with the concept of painting my home town, Altrincham, blue for a week and 2022 was the third PAB. We had café’s doing blue cakes, bars doing blue cocktails, there was even a Tony Cocktail! We had shops lit up blue and even the town hall illuminated blue. The primary purpose of the week is to raise awareness of men’s health issues particularly prostate and testicular cancers and mental health. We had an art trail with blue paintings from the local primary school and paintings depicting men’s health issues from some senior schools. The paintings were absolutely stunning!
Other highlights of the week were being asked to do a lunch time awareness talk in the local town centre pub only to get there to find out that no one had told the pubs regulars! That was a fascinating talk as I rounded up folk to listen with the promise of free sandwiches!
The main event in the week was a talk at Altrincham Football Club where Neil Fachie OBE partially sighted paralympic cyclist and multiple gold medal winner told us about sporting triumph over health adversity whilst Dan Rowe from Andy’s Man Club talked about mental health. Both talks were amazing so I was very nervous about going last but I think I held my own. Yes, there were tears again! I even got to hold Neil’s Tokyo Olympic gold medal!
Finally, I picked up a couple of awards along the way! I was short listed for the North West Cancer Awards as Male Champion Awareness raiser and was delighted to win the award. Then in December at my running club awards ceremony I won the running achievement award for my 5k 365 day challenge. I was surprised to win this as the other people short listed had achieved some amazing things including Gary who had been selected to run for team GB Seniors!
December was mainly about surviving the rest of the 365 day challenge as well as doing lots of media work, thanks to my lovely friend Anna, to promote the fundraising and Move Charity. The final three days of my challenge fell into 2023 because I tested positive for Covid very briefly earlier in the year so more about that in next years review.
I did say that it was epic year and, if you got this far, well stuck at. I’m very proud of my achievements but actually much prouder that I may have saved a few lives along the way!
Running Into Cancer 