‘I really think I am the luckiest person’: broadcaster, former golfer Mark Allen on secret cancer fight
Former golfer Mark Allen believes cancer detected in his bowel could have been lying dormant for up to four years as he was feeling as well as he'd ever felt in his life before the shock diagnosis.
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Former golfer Mark Allen believes cancer detected in his bowel could have been lying dormant for up to four years.
Allen was diagnosed with stage-four bowel cancer, which also spread to his lung, last December.
The sports broadcaster has opened up about his cancer battle with Mike Sheahan on Fox Footy's Open Mike, to be aired at 8.30pm on Tuesday, revealing the gravity of his diagnosis came as a shock.
“I was told I was stage four feeling as well as I’ve ever felt in my life,” Allen said.
“I was started to practice (golf) a bit. I turned 50 not long ago and I was going to take some lunch money on these little seniors tournaments that are around.
“I started going to the gym and I started practicing my golf again and I was feeling fantastic.”
What was even more surprising for Allen was every blood test he had ever taken came back negative.
“I was getting blood tests every year but the blood tests … they tell me now that the bowel cancer, because it doesn’t move slow in the rectum, it might have been there for 3 1/2 , four years,” he said.
“So all these blood tests I’m having along the way are all coming up clear.
“I didn’t feel sick, all the blood tests were saying I don’t have cancer. The bowel cancer blood test that I took right before they found it came up clear. It’s just craziness.”
Watch Mark Allen on Open Mike on Tuesday night at 8.30pm. In the meantime, read Allen's interview with Jon Ralph last month.
MARK ALLEN'S SECRET FIGHT
Former golfer and sport radio host Mark Allen has revealed a secret battle with stage four bowel and lung cancer.
The Macquarie Sport radio host has been fighting dual cancers since December when a fast-tracked colonoscopy revealed a tumour on his rectum.
A PET scan only days later would reveal a secondary cancer in his chest.
The charismatic host and former world No. 177 has endured the most turbulent 16 months of his life, sacked despite agreeing to a two-year contract at SEN Radio and now fighting for his life.
Allen will on Thursday undergo a third major operation to cut out 70 per cent of his bowel after already having 18 per cent of his lung taken out.
But his team of doctors has told him he has a fighting chance to win the battle after encouraging scans in recent weeks showing the treatment is working.
He will take three weeks off air on Macquarie’s Sports Radio’s drive slot to undergo that operation, having been told he has a good chance of successfully fighting both cancers.
Remarkably, the 50-year-old has missed just four days of radio with co-host David Schwarz despite five weeks of chemotherapy and radiation.
Allen told the Sunday Herald Sun yesterday he had gone from considering his mortality to believing he could be cancer-free by Christmas.
“There is no doubt when I got the news I was stage four. In some of that alone time you are in the car and start thinking the worst. All your life all you want to do is look after Trish and the kids You are driving along and thinking about funeral songs. What song will they play at my funeral,” he said.
“But that disappeared pretty quickly. Let’s put some good music on and now I am singing in the car again.
“I have got some superstar doctors and I trust in them. Hopefully by November or December I will give you a call and we will have a party.”
Yesterday he thanked his wife Trish for her support as well as the Macquarie powerbrokers who saved his radio career, then gave him support at such a precarious time.
He was set to sell his house and embark upon a career in real estate until the formation of the new station, which quickly hired the popular pair in the 3pm-7pm slot.
Allen chose to fight the cancer without publicity as he endured a raft of tests and treatments to save his life.
He and Trish waited until after Christmas to tell daughter Olivia, 12, and son Kelly, nine, of his diagnosis given his uncertain future.
He had never been sick or had a previous operation, had several years of blood tests coming up negative and was only diagnosed in time with a twist of fate.
HOW HE FOUND OUT
Instead of wasting his time on “why me?” moments, Allen believes a series of lucky breaks mean he is still alive to fight today.
Concerned about some bright red blood when he went to the toilet, he was diagnosed with a haemorrhoid cream by a GP but the minor bleeding continued sporadically.
“I was driving home in my last week of radio in December last year and there was a news report on Macquarie Radio saying Australia is number two in curing bowel cancer,” he says.
“So I went in and my doctor said if you are worried you should do a colonoscopy.”
He booked in for a test in late January — eight weeks later — then days after played golf at his local club, Kingston Heath, where he ran into club member and doctor Geoff Wells.
Wells fast-tracked a colonoscopy within days as a favour, where a sizeable tumour was detected.
A battery of tests the next week made clear the cancer was also in his lungs, but critically had not spread to his lymph nodes.
“(Wells) said you go to sleep, we will wake you up after we have got rid of a couple of polyps and we will be right as rain. And he woke me up and I could tell by his face. He said we have found a big tumour. Then we had a rush of tests and the last one was a PET scan where they uncovered another one in my lungs.
“The one in my rectum had migrated through which made me stage four and then when they found the cancer on my lung I was stage four.”
The cancer had escalated at such a rate that had he waited until January to take that colonoscopy he might not be here today.
“I really think I am the luckiest person. If Dr Wells plays golf in the afternoon instead of the morning I am dead. I think I would have been dead today,” he said.
A radial lobectomy was performed on his bowel by surgeon Phillip Antippa to ensure the cancer was contained before five weeks of chemotherapy and radiation.
“Professor Ian Jones is the captain of my four doctors. He said, “You are a golfer so put it this way. You are on the back nine of your last round and you are three shots behind a champion. We can’t afford to make any mistakes,” said Allen.
“I remember thinking to myself, ‘I wonder if this bugger knows I have never won a tournament’.”
“He should have said, “It’s Friday, you are on the cut line and need to make some pars.”
Allen will face three more months of radiology and chemotherapy along with his last surgery, aware he is far from out of the woods but at least in with a chance.
“At the moment it’s a really good story and we have ticked every box and we just have to get through the second half of it.”
WORKING THROUGH THE PAIN
Radio co-host and former Melbourne star Schwarz says Allen has stunned him with his capacity to keep working as a distraction from his treatment.
“Having gone through this adversity you understand what he is made of,” Schwarz said.
“You speak to a lot of people about what he is going through as a stage four cancer sufferer and then you see him coming in from chemo looking as green as if he had been on the turps for three months.
“And he soldiers on and then has another bout of chemo and radiation and after 28 days of that, he only missed four days of work. It’s genuine toughness.
“I reckon three months ago he had his back to the wall and when he had another meeting to see if the cancer had spread or not, it’s a flip of the coin thing for your life.
“He was just brave and tough and it was never about him. He just needed a good place to come and work and that’s where Macquarie is.
“For the second bout of chemo and surgery they will put a studio in his house if he can’t come in. They are a bloody good employer than understand people and loves and respects them.”
Allen and Schwarz had planned a $1 million law suit against their former station after being sacked by new management despite new two-year contracts.
Allen’s situation means they have now moved on.
“We were all set to go this year but this just got in the way,” says Allen.
“To be honest with you, stuff it. Let’s get on with life.
“After the SEN stuff, our house was a tinder box. To be told you have another two years on your SEN contract, the family went out and celebrated with ice cream.
“So trying to explain to the family after getting a two-year contract I am sacked, we would have had to sell the house.
“But we got bad news again before Christmas and the house has been rock solid because of Trish. She has been unbelievable.”
Allen hopes his story will help others become more aware of bowel cancer, determined not to wallow in misery.
“More and more people are being diagnosed with it under 50. They said it was an old man’s disease but more and more it’s not. So if there is any doubt at all in your mind the colonoscopy is the way to go. I had blood tests that showed nothing for three or four years.
“I am lucky. When I got the sack from SEN I was going to be a real estate agent and if I was doing that we would have had to sell the house and we would be on our knees but luckily Macquarie came along. Even though it’s such a sh** story with so much bad stuff in 16 months it ends up being the luckiest story in the whole world.”
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