A Monifieth man diagnosed with cancer for the second time is to tackle the Maggie’s Monster Bike and Hike with a team of friends and family.
Les Stephen’s team got together at his house over the weekend to talk fund-raising tactics and prepare for the challenge of the Monster a 24-hour event involving cycling and hiking between Fort William and Inverness.
Les (55), who runs a flooring business with his wife Jackie, has been an inspiration for many people to raise cash for the Dundee Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centre, where he got the help he needed to carry on living after the devastating diagnosis.
He was socialising with a family friend who happens to be a specialist urology nurse when she noticed that Les was frequently going to the toilet and advised him to go for a check-up. Tests revealed prostate cancer and he had surgery at the end of August 2008. Apart from a follow-up check every three months, there was no further treatment.
Then, on Jackie’s birthday last May, Les was told the cancer had come back. Treatment is hormone therapy, and he is continuing to take his tablets.
Les openly admits he had difficulty coming to terms with his situation and sank into depression although he didn’t realise that at the time.
“I just didn’t want to go out,” he said. “I was happy to stay at home and watch TV.”
Jackie and Les’s friends knew he wasn’t coping, but felt helpless to know what to do for him. Like a lot of men, Les didn’t know how to start speaking about his feelings bottling everything up was having an adverse effect on the father of three’s family.
Eventually, a friend told Jackie she needed help to cope with Les and advised her to take him up to the Dundee Maggie’s. There the couple spoke to a psychologist and have never looked back.
“It was just like speaking to a friend,” said Les, who is a member at Broughty Golf Club in Monifieth. “I went to see the psychologist on the Thursday and went to play golf on the Sunday and cut 10 shots off my score.”
He also got to meet other men with the same problem and discovered they weren’t “grumpy moaners,” but guys just like him some of whom had been surviving with cancer for up to 20 years. Les also got to hear about the Monster Bike and Hike and signed up for the challenge with a few of his friends and his elder son Adam (20).
At 17, younger son Cameron isn’t old enough to take part in the event and will have to settle for being part of the support team with his mum and sister Leanne (23).
“I feel it is going to be brilliant,” said Les. “It’s a way of giving something back. The nurses in ward eight and doctors at Ninewells were absolutely brilliant with me, but I had to start living again and Maggie’s helped me to do that.”
Les’s team has set up a donations page at www.justgiving.com/owen-keen