IN AN INSPIRING AND FRANK INTERVIEW

SIMON MACCORKINDALE AND SUSAN GEORGE

TELL WHY THEY ARE FOCUSING ON THE POSITIVE AS THEY TACKLE HIS ILLNESS TOGETHER

‘Simon is not dying of cancer – he’s living with it, That’s really important’

Actor Simon MacCorkindale is looking a picture of health, riding his quad bike across the Exmoor farm he shares with his actress wife Susan George. His rosy cheeks and positive energy make the knowledge that he is battling cancer all the harder to comprehend.

It was only last month that former Casualty star Simon, 57, revealed the secret he’d been harbouring for three and a half years. During that time, he’d thrown himself into a grueling work schedule. A schedule he now admits was ridiculous given that, when not filming the BBC medical drama, he was undergoing surgery for bowel cancer.

After that, he took on two national tours and the exacting role of Captain Georg Von Trapp in The Sound of Music in the West End, while quietly coping with the knowledge that the cancer had spread to his lungs.

But Simon is not the sort of character to sit and brood over what life throws at him.
Being told he may have only five years to live has made him all the more determined to confound the doctors’ prognosis.

“There’s not a single cancer that exists that someone hasn’t survived, so therefore nothing is incurable,” he says in his distinctive deep voice

“Never underestimate the power of the mind and spirit.”

This positive approach, coupled with homeopathic treatments and a macrobiotic diet has, he says, yielded significant results.

“I have rarely felt fitter or had more energy,” he says. But, right now, he has reduced his workload as he undergoes a six-month course of chemotherapy, a treatment that he believes will shrink the cancer and stop it spreading.

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