Mount Barker Mayor David Leach is on the road to recovery following a recent cancer diagnosis.
He had to step down in early October after he suffered broken ribs from a fall, and doctors discovered he had bowel cancer while looking at an MRI.
“I had a very small cancerous growth in my bowel and it was only 1cm long. I went into hospital to get that 1cm piece removed and what should have been a three or four day stay in hospital and two weeks off work, ended up with me spending a month in the intensive care unit with complications,” Mayor Leach said in a radio interview this morning with ARN’s Adam Connelly and Jennie Lenman.
“But the good news is I’ve been home for nearly a week now, I’m up and walking about… and I’m going back to work in a fortnight.”
The date he is expecting to return to his leadership role at Mt Barker Council is Friday 1 December.
It is not Mayor Leach’s first cancer diagnosis. Two years ago he had an operation for prostate cancer.
“My family have had a history of cancer, I monitored it with my GP, my excellent GP here in Mt Barker, and he gave me the advice to go and get these relatively simple procedures like a colonoscopy and MRI scan and by being proactive caught the disease, both of them, very early in their stages.”
He is urging others to regularly see health professionals and have check-ups and tests when needed.
“If you are a male and you’re 50, 60 or 70, talk to your GP. She or he will advise you on the best thing to do, there’s nothing worse than finding out this could have been made a lot easier if you only had gone and got some advice earlier,” he said.
Hear David Leach’s full chat with ARN’s Jennie Lenman and Adam Connelly via the audio play window below:
