Dan Sharples’ life was grand; He was in England, playing cricket and things were great. Until one night suddenly life became a whole lot less great.
You see, he lost a body part. A very sensitive body part. But that loss brought together some mates to do something wonderful.
“I woke up about four in the morning with a sharp pain in my left testicle and a dull ache and from there I knew something wasn’t right,” Mr Sharples said.
He had noticed a lump below for quite some time but had not done anything about it, that’s until a sharp pain made him realise he needed to get checked.
In Mr Sharples’ case, the whole experience happened very quick. He lost his testicle which was followed by six months of chemotherapy.
“Found out on a Friday, flew home on a Sunday, arrived on a Monday and got operated on a Tuesday… The hardest part was you never really knew. You never knew if it was going to work.”
As he recovered from chemotherapy, he turned to running to keep fit even if it meant starting small but setting his eyes on the Queenstown marathon.
“A run for me was no more than one kilometre and I was exhausted… One idea led to another and before I knew it I had ten mates just signed up like that.”
They had never run a marathon so trained together helping each other to keep their eyes on the prize.
He raised $20,000 for Movember from running a marathon with mates and another $14,000 or so the year before.
Dan Sharples says you can't choose to have cancer but can choose how you deal with it.
Watch the full video above to find out more.
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