James Smith woke up from a colonoscopy to be told devastating news. At 59, he was diagnosed with colon cancer. Doctors found a mass so large it completely blocked their view of the rest of his colon. Smith said he was shocked.
“It was hard, it was a hard diagnosis,” he said. “It was hard to believe it was actually happening.”
Smith underwent surgery and four rounds of chemotherapy. When his doctors suggested he join a study to examine regular exercise and its possible role in preventing cancer recurrence, he said yes. He was concerned — through the course of his treatment he had lost about 26 kilograms, as well as muscle mass. But he joined, anyway.
“At the beginning it was difficult, I won’t deny. It was like, ‘How am I going to do all this?'”
Though he wasn’t included in the final study, he ended up finding the …