Sir Chris Hoy makes heartbreakingly brave vow after his terminal cancer and wife's MS diagnoses
Sir Chris Hoy has been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and the Olympic hero has vowed he still has a "lot of life left to live" in an interview with This Morning
by Phil Cardy · The MirrorOlympic hero Sir Chris Hoy has vowed “there’s a lot of life left to live” as he spoke about his terminal cancer diagnosis alongside wife Sarra.
Sir Chris and Lady Sarra spoke publicly together for the first time since the six-time Olympic champion revealed he had been given two to four years left to live after being diagnosed with stage-four prostate cancer.
Appearing on the This Morning sofa they discussed their “tough” year, which also saw his wife Lady Sarra Hoy diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Speaking to presenters Cat Deeley and Dermot O’Leary, Sir Chris said it all saterted with a pain in his shoulder.
He said: “I had this pain in my shoulder and it wouldn’t go away. I was 47 then, still lifting weights in the gym, still physically active. You’re used to having aches and pains but this one didn’t go away.
“I went to get the scan at the doctor's surgery and they brought the scan up and said ‘there’s a tumour on your shoulder, we need to find out what the root of this is’. So I had multiple other scans and eventually the root of it was a prostate, and it was stage four prostate cancer which had spread to the bones.”
He told how he was shocked by the diagnosis after having “no symptoms” and “nothing to point” to his condition until the shoulder pain. “It came out of the blue. I always prided myself as someone who would go to the doctor with illness or pain.
“As part of being an athlete, you’re used to looking after your body and being quite aware of yourself, but in this case, it was too late by the time we had actually found the diagnosis.”
The couple discusses his new book - All That Matters - which aims to inspire people to stay positive in challenging times. Although he said this was difficult after first being diagnosed, admitting he “felt sick”.
“I felt nauseous and the room felt like it was spinning. I had to get up but I couldn’t sit still and it’s not the news that you can ever prepare yourself for. You can never imagine yourself in that situation and a million thoughts are running through your head. The first one was ‘how on earth are we going to tell the kids?’”
Speaking about her diagnosis Lady Sarra said it came out of the blue, and she originally didn’t tell her husband. “It came completely out of the blue and I just knew it wasn’t the right time.
“I always tell Chris everything and we are always each other’s crutch in everything in life so it was very against the grain to not share it with him but I just knew it wasn’t the right time. We were trying to find stable ground having just been given this diagnosis from him.”
Sir Chris added: “Even sitting here doing this, six months ago there is no way we could have done it - it would have been too emotional. It’s having targets each day, it’s having things that you have to focus on.
“The kids are the centre of your life so that’s your purpose to get out of bed and to get on and look after them to make sure they’re okay. But it’s about bringing it back to the here and the now, the future doesn’t exist yet… so it’s about trying to be present, trying to appreciate the ‘now’.”
He told how he found inspiration after speaking to Andy Taylor, the guitarist in Duran Duran, who has also been suffering from cancer. Sir Chris said his positivity gave him hope: “Around the time of my diagnosis he was in the news talking about his cancer treatment.”
Andy had targeted treatment focusing on the genetic mutation of the cancer. Sir Chris said: “He was cancer free, not cured but asymptomatic. Immediately you think there’s your glint of light, you think if it works for one person, perhaps that might work for me.”
He also told how he was helping comedian Paddy McGuinness with his training for a 300 bike ride, on a Raleigh Chopper, to raise money for Children in Need. And he is also focusing on his “Tour de 4”, where he aims for as many people as possible who have been affected by cancer to ride from Glasgow to Edinburgh every summer.
Sarra said: “He’s still on his bike every day as fit as ever, well maybe not Olympic standard, but to be able to do a cycle ride like this.” Sir Chris said the initiative aimed to “shine a light on all stage four cancers.”
“Not everyone is as lucky as myself. Some people don’t have as much time, but for now I am fit and healthy and I’m going to crack on and hopefully raise a huge amount of money and change perceptions of stage four cancer. There’s a lot of life left to live.”
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