"I am living with cancer, not dying from it."
Tony’s Story
May 2017 was grim for the Collier family. On Friday 5th May my baby Sister was told that she only had 12 months to live. She’d had a recurrence of breast cancer and had been in a lot of pain. She was only 51 and passed away 18 months later.
On 8th May I went to see a sports injuries Doctor. I’d been training to run one of the world’s toughest ultra-marathons in South Africa but a “groin strain” was hampering my training. We’d pre-arranged a MRI scan and it was clear from the Doctors face that there was something wrong. He told me that they needed to rule out anything untoward and sent me there and then for a chest x-ray and some blood tests and the following day a CT scan. You don’t need those for a groin strain but I really hadn’t thought about cancer.
On 9th May at 8.00 in the evening he phoned me to say that he was 99% certain that I had prostate cancer and our world fell apart. I drove home in floods of tears to break the news to my Wife. That was a horrendous conversation and I made the mistake of telling her that she should leave me because I couldn’t look after her anymore and she should find someone else that could.
A whirl wind of tests, scans, biopsies and the good old finger where the sun doesn’t shine test before we met the urologist who broke the news, “Yes, Tony, it’s advanced stage prostate cancer and there’s no cure. Oh, by the way, worst case you’ve got two years to live”
The hardest conversation ever was when we broke the news to our adult children. I had to ask them to come round one evening but couldn’t tell them why. It must have been awful for them. I’m sure that they expected bad news but maybe not quite as bad as they got!
Forward to 31st May, the day we should have flown to South Africa and our first appointment with my Oncologist. Possibly the most re-assuring man I’ve ever met. A long discussion about what to expect, treatment options to extend my life, how the future might pan out, when chemo would start. As it happens, it never started as he managed to persuade my private medical insurers to fund a new drug for me instead and it’s worked wonders at keeping me stable to date.
However, the drug caused some serious liver function issues and at one of the Oncologist appointments my wife asked “What about Tony’s alcohol intake given his liver function?” To which he replied “I’m from Glasgow, what do you expect me to say?” I could have kissed him! Thankfully the liver stabilised on a lower dose.
Back to that first Oncologist appointment and my Wife and I were absolutely in bits. Being told that you’ve got cancer is bad enough, being told that it’s incurable is devastating and we didn’t know where to turn for help so asked him where we could get support and he signposted us to Maggie’s.
We headed straight over and met the then centre head Sinead who explained that we should think that “I was living with cancer and not that I was dying of cancer”. That really struck a chord and helped a lot. We’ve been fortunate enough to go on Safari in Africa and it struck us just how much the centre looks like an African game lodge but I came to realise that Maggie’s is so much more than a building. It became my haven of tranquillity. A place where I could get me head back together after appointments “across the road”. My wife and I would sit in the garden, hold hands, cry, contemplate the future and how long it may be. It was a tough time but Maggie’s was always there for us.
I became an ambassador for Maggie’s and was asked to speak at an event there and explain what Maggie’s means to us. I’ve done that a few times since as well but that first time I met the remarkable woman that is Margo Cornish. I went along to meetings with her, she got me to do awareness talks for the firemen at the airport and then one day she said “Oh, by the way, you’re going to be a model in our fashion show” That was the start of an incredible journey leading up to MOTR 2018 as part of the showcase starlets catwalk. We made friends for life and had one of the most amazing days of our lives. I was also asked to do a speech during the fashion show and the evening’s gala ball. That was very scary but also very powerful. There were tears in the front rows of the audience, poor Rick. I spoke about the reality of a terminal cancer diagnosis. Would I get to see my grandson become a teenager, his Mum was a guest and she was in tears. Would I get to walk my Daughter down the aisle, she was there and in tears and I will get to walk her down the aisle on 30th August! Most importantly I got over a really important message about what Maggie’s does.
Cue 2021 and that Margo tells me I’m a catwalk captain, the first male captain. The most unlikely catwalk captain ever with two left feet and no co-ordination so heaven help my team and then, purely by chance, I end up being a model again which is something that I definitely wasn’t planning to do. I thought I’d had my day in the sun but, deep down, I’m really happy to have another crack and help support the wonderful institution that is Maggie’s, my safe heaven and the bringer of peace, calm and tranquillity.
