Nine presenter Will McDonald back to skydiving after finish cancer treatment

Nine newsreader is back to his greatest vice – skydiving – after finishing treatment for prostate cancer.

As Nine News presenter Will McDonald hurtled towards Earth, he realised he’d never felt more in control.

The 43-year-old had finally been cleared to get back to his greatest vice – solo skydiving – after finishing treatment for prostate cancer.

“The beautiful thing about skydiving is that that is all you think about,” McDonald tells the Sunday Mail. “The woes of the world, whatever bill you haven’t paid, cancer or whatever else is on your mind just disappears. Your entire focus is completely on what you are doing so it was really nice to have that moment again.”

The inspirational journalist – who will celebrate 21 years with Nine and 10 years as presenter next month – has been given great news by his doctors. The aggressive cancer, which started in his prostrate and spread to his hip, has shrunk.

McDonald hasn’t taken a single sick day since being diagnosed in June last year, continuing to present Nine’s 5pm and weekend bulletins and maintain a gruelling fitness program. But he shares that four weeks of daily radiotherapy took its toll. His girlfriend Samantha Kelly encouraging him to take one day to just sit on the couch and relax.

“I felt that I had to be doing everything to prove that I was beating cancer and it wasn’t going to stop me – it certainly helped when I did give myself a break,” McDonald says. “It actually required me to realise that I need to listen to my body. I don’t do that well. I had to make myself realise that, sometimes, rest is a good thing to do.

“It wasn’t that I felt negative or anything. It’s just that I needed a shift in thinking and tell myself ‘You are not a superhero. You just need to sit on the couch for a few days and let yourself recover’.”

BACK IN THE AIR: Nine News presenter Will McDonald at Adelaide Skydiving at Lower Light. He’s finished his cancer treatment and been cleared to skydive. Picture: BRENTON EDWARDS

FEELING PUMPED: Will McDonald has continued an intense fitness program throughout his chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment. Picture: KERYN STEVENS

He faces three-monthly blood tests and has a hormone implant which helps keep in hibernation whatever tiny remnants of cancer are left in his body. But he is exactly where doctors want him to be. Some struggle once the active fighting of cancer is over – McDonald’s pragmatic and positive as always as he shares that he’d prepared himself for this moment.

“It’s certainly a shift in mindset,” he says. “During chemotherapy, you’re in the fight and you see yourself and your doctors working to cure the cancer.

“Afterwards there is a different mind shift required to make sure that I stay on that positive track. I don’t feel like I’m fighting cancer, but I certainly feel like I’m still defeating cancer. If that makes sense.

“Every now and then I do a positive visualisation technique to think of my body obliterating it.

“If you’re not doing something actively, there’s chance that you will slip into the worry and the negative of what will happen and that’s something that I will always work at not doing.”

McDonald pauses, before he adds: “It’s just nice to get to a point where you know cancer is no longer controlling your life.”