Continuing to serve the community motivates Craig McDougall in his fight with cancer. Photo / File
“I don’t want to be the guy at the front of the story, but at this stage I have to be.’’
No, being the focus of attention has never been what’s motivated Craig McDougall.
Quietly and unobtrusively improving the lot of others is his “calling.’’
The 2013 Hawke’s Bay Person of the Year, Vodafone World of Difference recipient and Kiwibank community leader doesn’t live his life for pats on the back.
But now the renowned boxing coach and mentor is in the fight of his life.
Recently diagnosed with oesophageal cancer, the founder of the Hawke’s Bay Youth Trust and Giants Boxing Academy leaves for Mexico in three weeks for life-saving treatment.
Twice in recent months, he’s been told his situation could be palliative rather than curative and, yet, you wouldn’t know it.
The vigour in his voice belies being hooked up to a chemotherapy pump, as he was when he talked to Hawke’s Bay Today on Wednesday.
McDougall once dreamed of boxing for New Zealand at the 2004 Olympic Games, but a personal situation put paid to that. In more recent years, he attempted to swim Cook Strait.
He got halfway, not realising the fatigue he felt was due to a tumour.
“So I got close to the Olympics, I didn’t get the Strait, but this is one great mountain to climb,’’ McDougall said.
“This has it all on the line and we can be scared of it or we can dive in and give all the teaching I give to all these kids and families and put it into my life and go ‘yeah, we’ll win this battle’.
“Like you say, I might sound enthusiastic and that’s because I wholeheartedly am and, to win this, I think you have to be.’’
McDougall now knows he’d been exhibiting cancer symptoms for eight years. Dry-retching was the most obvious, then it became difficult to swallow.
“I’d be eating a grape or a mandarin or a piece of broccoli and I’d just sit there in nine-out-of-10 pain,’’ he said.
Two procedures and an operation revealed a form of cancer more prevalent in older people, with lifestyles that present greater risks of morbidity.
“But I’m not in that market. I’m 47 years old, fit, enthusiastic and happy to do anything it takes [to recover],’’ said McDougall.
He’s 10 weeks into chemotherapy, but also exploring alternative medicine in an effort to keep fulfilling the obligation he feels to the youth of Hawke’s Bay.
“As long as I get this right and get through it, which I have every intention of doing, this experience is going to help others.’’
A Givealittle page has been set up to help get him and his wife Vicki to the Sanoviv Medical Institute in Mexico, for three weeks of care.
His determination to beat this disease is obvious and it’s only talk of donations and gestures of kindness towards him and his family that momentarily tests his resolve.
“It gets a little emotional for me. I do a lot of heart-to-heart stuff with people, but it’s a bit different when you hear this emotion pouring back,’’ McDougall said.
“I don’t sit here going ‘I’m important to Hawke’s Bay’. I’m no more important than anyone else and I sit here in chemo and I hear people coming in and out and I hope they’ve got similar support.
“Look at the privileges of this: I’m not in a car accident so, even if I only have six months or a year in the worst case, I’ve got six months to get affairs in order and I can make videos so my kids can play them at their weddings.’’
To donate see givealittle.co.nz/cause/craigmcdougall?ref=home&ref_code=donation_feed
The book was published with support from her teachers, Hastings' Mayor, and her community.