Please find below a copy of the interview I did with CBC Windsor News in November of last Year. I am re copying it here for those who have not seen it or read it, as I am now in the last two days of a fundraiser my friend Kimberly Eirdosh Caamano from New Jersey started for me a while back. The fundraiser got off to a very quick start but then kind of petered out. So I am asking one final time that if you have not donated yet or are considering a donation, now would be the time to do it as the Fundraiser ends July 1st and we are a long way from the initial target. For those how have given and given generously I must say, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Please find below the "written" copy of my CBC story as well as video, and most of all the Link to the fundrasier, and don't forget to share where you can. Let's see how much further we can take this in the next 48 hours!!
Thank You,
Timothy J. Mayer
Man beats cancer four times in five years
Tim Mayer keeps spirits high, finds salvation on internet
Tim Mayer is beating some very bad odds. He has survived cancer not once, but four times in five years.
The link to the fundraiser on Give Forward: http://www.giveforward.com/helptimhammerlymphoma
A new report says the disease is now the leading cause of death in every Canadian province and territory. Latest statistics show it accounts for 30 per cent of all deaths here. It hasn't accounted for Mayer's even though he thought it would.
"You're going to die.That's the first thing that goes through your mind," he said. "And to this day, it still goes through your mind."
Mayer is still here despite a rough five years. He survived three forms of cancer four times; underwent a bone marrow transplant; and was denied experimental treatment he wanted to try in Michigan.
He celebrated each remission, every win. And then last year, when he thought he had finally won the war, his doctor called.
"It's never good when the doctor themselves call you. And she informed me that they found two nodes in my chest," he said from a chair in his Windsor home with two tumours still slowly growing in his lungs.
Life is not the same
Mayer said he feels like he just can't catch a break.
The Regional trucker can no longer work, although he thinks about it. He can no longer perform woodworking or camp — his two favourite pastimes. And his long-term disability insurance and possibly even his benefits run out in March, after five years.
"I try to live life as normal as possible," Mayer said.
The cancer, he said, has made him more caring, more willing to help people and accept help himself.
His story, although extreme, isn't unique.
According to the Canadian Cancer Society, 40 per cent of women and 45 per cent of men will get a cancer diagnosis in their lifetime.
Internet helps him cope
The trick, according to Mayer, is finding a way to cope. For him, the internet has been his salvation.
He blogs and uses social media to connect with other cancer patients who share his fears and reality.
But that also means he loses more friends than the average Facebook user.
"It's emotional; like losing a brother or a sister," he said. "And I've had times where I'm on the computer and I'll break down and my wife says, 'who now?'
Recent high-profile cancer deaths, like those of Apple's Steve Jobs and the NDP's Jack Layton didn't help.
Mayer says the slow growing cancer inside him is just part of his new reality. But he's not calling it quits.
"Death. It's there. And if you let it get you, it will, if you let it," Mayer said. "But you take your moment think about it and then you move on."
