Olympic legend Sir Chris Hoy reveals health update in prostate cancer battle as he shares new hope for future
SIR Chris Hoy has vowed to fight his stage four prostate cancer and still has hope for the future.
The six time Olympic gold medalist has “15 to 16 options” on the table to prolong his life thanks to Professor Sir Chris Evans.
Speaking alongside Chris Hoy at a Q and A session for Community Socials Cancer Awareness Trust in London, Evans, 67, said: “This is clever stuff.
“With Chris you’re gonna go through one or two steps and see how they go but there’s about 15, 16 things we can do.
“Which I hope he has none of them. And he probably won’t as he looks better than me.
“Positive people with cancer do a lot better than the negative people with cancer, they respond better to whatever the treatment.”
Insisting he still is optimistic about the future, Chris branded himself “lucky” before adding: “The biggest shift in my mentality in the last year and a half is learning to slow things down and still have the goals, still have the purpose, still have things to look forward to, but actually to appreciate the moment.
“Because the future doesn’t exist. The future is this abstract concept that we worry about that may never happen, we often worry about the wrong thing, often actually something comes out of left field, like cancer.”
Vowing not to lose his spark and love of life, Chris said: “I thought, right, I’ve got to build my troop around me.
“The people who for all different kinds of components that you need, you know, my wife who is right at the top of the list, she’s my rock, she’s the foundation.
“But you’ve also got all the different people that you bring to you that matter to you, and that can help you.
“You have to find hope because for good reason the doctors can’t give you false hope, they can’t promise you anything.
“It’s a club you never want to join but when you do you have to embrace it.
“You don’t have to be positive every day as it is impossible to be positive all the time.
“But I think, for me, it’s about choosing not to be negative more than being positive.”
Looking ahead to the future, Chris, who has a prognosis of two to four years, said: “I think it’s so important to still have big ambitions and goals and reason to drive you on and to have a focus and to not think too far ahead.
Positive people with cancer do a lot better than the negative people with cancer, they respond better to whatever the treatment
“I still have plans to still have big exciting things and I have got plenty of those coming up in family holidays and having Tour De Four [his charity race] means I want to be fit and I want to go well .
“I want to train for it, so every time I go on the bike I think about that and the purpose behind it.
“But while I’m on the bike, I’m looking around me and I’m trying to take in, I look thinking ‘this is beautiful’ even if it’s raining .
“I’ve got three or four friends who passed away very suddenly without any warning, without the chance to appreciate life, without the chance to say ‘aren’t we lucky?’
“So, yeah, for me now, it is very much is about the present, but still looking forward to the future.”
What is prostate cancer?
Prostate cancer affects a small, walnut shaped gland that sits underneath the bladder and surrounds the urethra – the tube carrying pee outside the body.
It usually grows bigger as you get older.
The prostate’s main job is to help make semen – the fluid that carries sperm.
Most men with early prostate cancer don’t have any signs or symptoms – that’s why it’s important to know about your risk.
Possible symptoms include:
- Difficulty starting to urinate or emptying your bladder
- A weak flow when you urinate
- A feeling that your bladder hasn’t emptied properly
- Dribbling urine after you finish urinating
- Needing to urinate more often than usual, especially at night
- A sudden need to urinate – you may sometimes leak urine before you get to the toilet
If you do notice changes in the way you urinate, this is more likely to be a sign of an enlarged prostate, which is very common and non-cancerous.
But it’s still a good idea to get it checked out.
In the UK, about one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime.
Some factors may mean you’re more likely to get it.
This includes:
- Getting older – it mainly affects men aged 50 or over
- Having a family history of prostate cancer
- Being Black
If you have any of these risk factors or if you have any symptoms, speak to your GP.
They can talk to you about your risk, and about the tests that are used to diagnose prostate cancer.
Source: Prostate Cancer UK