Our very own Colm Hayes from Colm & Lucy In The Morning recently opened up about dealing with his wife's cancer diagnosis.
In a recent interview, Colm said that his "most treasured possession faltered" after his wife was diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer five years ago.
As part of a new initiative, we at Ireland's Classic Hits Radio have teamed up with the makers of Operation Transformation and The Irish Sun.
Colm Hayes , a former CEO of mental health charity Cycle Against Suicide, is one of 16 people from across the country taking part in the challenge. The presenter who also used to man the phones as a Childline volunteer, recalled the pain of his wife's diagnosis.
“So for years with Cycle Against Suicide, and I used to do the phones for Childline as well, it was about talking to people about taking control of that most treasured possession and I think in the last couple of years mine has faltered", he said.
“We’ve never spoken about this publicly but my wife is going to speak about it on a podcast soon — five years ago she was diagnosed with stage-four metastatic breast cancer".
He added: “So that means we never get to have a party where the balloons are blue and we lift them and they all go up in the air and we go home".
Sharing an update on his wife Anne's current health, Colm revealed: “Anne is in third level chemo now, she goes to chemo every Monday for three weeks and then a Monday off across the five years. It’s huge, obviously. How that woman continues, I don’t know how she does it".
Praising his wife's courage as she continues to fight her illness, Colm added: “It’s huge, obviously. How that woman continues, I don’t know how she does it".
“I always remember thinking about the AIB ad ‘If Brave Is’ and they’ve a woman opening the coffee shop at 8 o’clock in the morning and ‘If Brave Is’ and there’s a man milking his cows and I used to say, well ‘If Brave Is’, it’s Anne".
Colm is understandably keen to take this challenge seriously to improve his mind, as he intends to focus on his nutrition, and "to get the benefit of the mindset".
“I don’t know if I took the first week seriously enough, so as the week was going on I started thinking to myself, ‘I need to stop thinking that this is for radio’, he said. “I need to start thinking that this is for me. I’m always performing, that’s probably half my problem".
“I’m always looking at the edits and the filters so I need to tone that down a bit. I need to embrace it a bit more".
Colm was also recently told by personal trainer Karl, that he had lost 1.2KG in week one.
“What we are seeing in the studio today is sustainable healthy weight loss and fat loss", he said. “Sustainable, that’s the word we’re using. It’s perfect".
He then told Colm: “Your visceral fat was 19, it was very high".
“Seven days in we’ve taken your visceral fat down by one point already to 18. In seven days that’s massive", he added. “We’re aiming for 13, that’s the sweet spot — 13 or below, you’re super healthy. Five more weeks potentially it will be a 13 or thereabouts".
Check out more from Colm here.
