A 90-year-old from Rivers, Manitoba, who worked as a farmer just outside the small community for his whole career with his wife Margaret, certainly does great things in support of cancer. Don McFadden continues to donate to cancer related charities every year along with many other charities that need his support. On top of that, he tries to make a habit of walking in the Relay for Life in support of the Canadian Cancer Society.
“I am 90-years-old so I have been around for a few years,” laughed McFadden. “ I am quite aware that cancer is one of the main causes of premature death in our society, and has been for many years. Going back a number of years I am very aware the effect of smoking, especially amongst young men had on premature death from cancer. Fortunately, we have made a bit of progress on that, but there is still a lot of cancer and a lot of people dying and a lot of families affected by cancer.”
McFadden says that when he was a teenager a lot of his male friends smoked, as it was unusual to see females smoking at this time. McFadden didn’t pick up the smoking habit, likely because neither his father nor mother smoked either.
“I didn’t smoke, but I know that if I had, I would have been gone at least 30 years ago… My father, he never told me I couldn’t smoke because I think they knew that if they told me I couldn’t, I would be smoking behind the barn,” joked McFadden. “ About 30 years ago now within an 18 month period, about five guys who I had grown up with all died of lung cancer. So that hit me fairly hard. I visited one of them in the hospital just a week or two before he died and interestingly that one who I visited had one older sister who never smoked and she’s now 100 and in fairly good health. I think that if he didn’t smoke he would have lived until 100 too.”
Along with all his friends that passed away from lung cancer nearly 30 years ago now, McFadden, himself has been fighting prostate cancer for the last 15 years.
“I have had a lot of neighbours, friends, family, who have suffered from cancer. I have been fighting prostate cancer for 15 years and I am still on and off chemotherapy intermittently,” explained McFadden. “My wife had colon cancer and major surgery and a colostomy. I lost my wife four years ago and while she didn’t die from cancer, that major surgery and that colostomy did adversely affect her quality of life until she died. Shortly after my wife's 80th Birthday she was diagnosed with Parkinson's and then the next year she was diagnosed with colon cancer and then the next year she was diagnosed with severe Dementia. It was all downhill from there. The last few years of her life were very difficult as she had no quality of life, she was in a personal care home for a little over five years and that was heartbreaking.”
Every year McFadden tries to do whatever he can to support and raise awareness for cancer. He tries to stress how important it is to get tested for cancer regularly.
“I belong to the National Prostate Cancer Organization and I also belong to a local Brandon Support Group and a Western Manitoba Support Group really,” added McFadden. “One of our main interests is stressing to younger and middle-aged men the importance of getting regular tests and I am not that familiar with Cancers in women, but I think that it is recommended that you get regular tests for breast cancer and several other types of cancer too.”
McFadden and his wife used to support many charities together, and to this day he continues to do his part. In 2017 he supported 31 charities financially - four of them being cancer-related charities and 12 were in the health field (Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, etc).
“They weren't five and ten dollar donations, I made substantial financial contributions to these charities... Before my wife died, she and I went to the Relay for Life for several years, she wasn’t able to do much of the walking but I did take her out on the track and hold her arm go a short distance and then take her back into the car and then I would go the rest the way around the track. I am still trying to do that.”
McFadden will continue to support and awareness for cancer as long as he can.
