Jim Stynes battle with cancer documentary to inspire people

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDSep 14 2010

Jim Stynes, the former AFL football star said he was motivated to participate in a documentary about his life and his battle with cancer to inspire people. The 1991 AFL Brownlow Medallist and current chairman of Melbourne Football Club is more than a year into his battle with cancer.

He said, “I've met so many people with cancer and it amazes me how so many of them don't look outside what their oncologist is saying…You've got to look outside, read books, go to the organizations that are dealing with people with cancer all the time. You've got to take responsibility for your own illness; you can't just keep doing the same thing you were doing all the time and expect things to change. You've got to take ownership and you do have to make changes or else your body's not going to change, it's going to keep doing the same thing.”

On one hand this feature does not ask people to shun traditional medicine but shows that alternative medicine, however bizarre like drinking one’s urine and giving oneself coffee enemas, is a possibility. Stynes was insisting on honesty in his approach. He said, “You don't really see these people honestly open, or very rarely. And if we were going to do this, I wanted to make sure that was portrayed. I wanted people to see this is me. I might be a bit quirky, a bit strange at times, a kid at times. But I wanted people to know you don't have to fear all these things in life, but at the same time it's OK to be scared and afraid.”

His main message was to fight and not give up. He feels that the battle with cancer is “about taking it on and having a crack. Whether you win the battle or not, that's not the most important thing. It's the journey you go on, and the person you become as a result of it.”

He spoke about his four weeks course of treatment with a new drug. In six weeks, he will undergo scans to see how well the medication has treated his tumors.

The documentary would be screened nationally this week. Stynes was only given nine months to life when first diagnosed in June last year and the documentary is mainly an account of what has happened since. The Jim Stynes Story screens at 6:30pm this Sunday on Channel Nine.