When you are told that you cannot ride - you really miss it - St Kilda Victoria

MONDAY AUG 4 / 2014 / by Andrew Talati
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Suriving and beating cancer

In late October 2013 Peter was diagnosed with rectal cancer. Immediately he had 6 weeks of chemo and radiation therapy together with surgery to "tidy things up". The Doctor recommended to get back on the bike at Christmas 2013 to keep fit and healthy as well as eat and sleep well before having some "nasty surgery". Three months later the tumour had shrunk in size due to the treatment and the tumour was removed along with "some other bits and pieces that didn't look good". After three and a half months of recovery Pete was ready to get back on the bike.

A second treatment of chemo started in May 2014 and after getting halfway through he's back on the bike. Just as a precaution Peter keeps a bottle of Chemo in his back pocket.

Look after the body


We are not invincible!

Peter: "As cyclists we think we are superman, invincible and have a false sense of security". Peters health checks were about being fit for cycling but not fit for life.

"My job now is to make sure all of my friends visit a doctor regularly. It's a lot easier to take half a day getting a health check versus the 12 months it's taken me to get through the whole thing. If it wasn't for getting tests conducted after suffering from a fever, the cancer would have never been detected. Peter would have just kept riding harder to make up for his drop in ride performance, thinking his poor riding and racing performance was due to his ineffective training program. He probably would have thought he "needed to train some more".

While conducting the initial tests for the fever, the doctors noticed what looked like saddle sore which didn't look quite right and triggered their investigation. If this hadn't occured Peter would have revisited the doctor in 5 years time with the response, "sorry, bad luck, its too late now".

Peter: " I really should have gone in 2 years ago, but at least I can tell my friends now to get checked out to avoid what I went through". There are so many guys in their 30's. 40's with cancer. The doctors are flooded at the moment, its the way we live, what we eat and what we do.
Attitudes like, "I'm slack, I'm ok, I'm healthy, everything is ok, there's nothing wrong with me, we focus too much on riding the bike".

The Doctor asked Peter 3 questions on his first visit:

1. Have you lost weight recently? Well this is hard to tell, as a bike rider you ride a lot and you loose weight. 
2. Are you tired? Also hard to answer as cyclists train, work, get up early and have families so 'yes I'm tired'.
3. How are your toilet habits,? Well after eating Gels and other supplements, it upsets your stomach and has flow on effects.

So when you ask your friends all these questions would be answered "Yes". We spend money on our bikes and cars so why not spend money your body.

The benefits of being healthy

The doctors are super impressed by how my fitness and health helped with my recovery from surgery and treatment. I started off at a base of 150% and knocked off 30% with treatment so I am way above the normal fitness level of a person my age.

So after surgery Peter was told he would spend 2 weeks in hospital but after 2 days he was off the pain killers and ready to go home. So going out and smashing yourself on the bike can have other benefits.

Peter: "When you are told that you cannot ride, you really miss it so when I woke up this morning and the roads were wet, it was dark and windy, there was spray coming off the roads and you think this is good. When the choice is taken from you to ride the bike you really appreciate being able to ride. I'm loving riding the bike at the moment, its just fun, we all take it a bit seriously but its just fun.

It's never too late to get healthy,

Peter: "At work the staff think that they have little hope as they admit they do everything wrong. I eat well, live a healthy lifestyle and exercise regularly.  Its the little things, exercise a bit, give up the cigarettes, drink less and eat more healthily.

As bike riders we watch what we eat, predisposing us to being healthly. We also don't realise the pain we endure riding our bikes, we climb Donna Buang and it hurts way more than anything those doctors can inflict on you. Cycling gives you many qualities, improves your pain threshold and reduces the quantity of tablets that you just don't need. Other riders can inflict far more pain in 60 minutes of racing than anything the doctors can inflict on you.

If cancer is not in you family, you have a 1 in 17 chance of getting bowel or colorectal cancer.

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