Men Talking Cancer Blog: Chris Taylor

cancer survivors, hit the gym!

By Chris taylor

Chris Taylor is a US-Navy veteran, but nowadays he works as a massage therapist. He currently lives in Georgia, but he dreams of going back to Florida where his true heart lies. Chris is a proud gay man who loves to stay active and take care of his body. Even during his cancer treatment, he didn’t want to let go of his fitness.

After I got diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma I faced a lot of physical health issues. Some due to the cancer itself, some due to side effects of the treatments I had needed. A couple of the health issues of NHL are: low back pain, fatigue and muscle weakness. The combination of these symptoms and the side effects of radiation treatments to both sides of my neck and all throughout my back ultimately makes a hellish combination. My shoulders and arms were weak. I had the weird sensation of spiders crawling up and down my back because some of the nerves had been “fried”.

Sometimes a sharp tingling bolt would would shoot down my body from my neck to my buttocks. I just knew I had to do something, I couldn’t let cancer control my life this way! If nothing else I was going to go out knowing I did everything I could to fight this horrible disease.

I knew I had to do something to start feeling better physically, and that is how I started going to the gym. At first I was a little intimidated by all of the exercise machines and all of the people who seemed to know what they were doing, so I just got on the treadmill trying to figure things out. There seemed to be several trainers at work, but I saw this big tall guy helping his client, and I was convinced that if anyone could help me it would be him.

He was built like Superman, but more importantly, he was nice. His name was Mark. I was afraid and embarrassed to try to lift anything in front of Mark. My arms would shake and tremble. Trying to lift the barbell for bench presses was hell, even without any weights on them. One time Mark had me doing an exercise with free weights, but things didn’t work the way I wanted, so I decided to quit. I set down the weights and started to walk away. I had tears in my eyes and all I wanted to do was get out of there to never come back.

I turned my back to Mark and took a few steps away… but then he simply asked me where I was going? That was actually a very good question. Was I going to go back home and let this get to me? Was I going to feel sorry for myself? Was I not going to care about how much someone wanted to help me? NO! I couldn’t do that to Mark or myself. I stayed! For the next six years I gave it all I had at the gym. I eventually got in good shape. I even reached a point where I could bench press more than my own weight. I had more energy, I felt better about myself, I had regained muscle strength. All in all, I was happier.

The cancer went into remission for a short time, but unfortunately it came back. I went on chemotherapy treatments. But still, most of what I accomplished at the gym was during that time. I would get an infusion on a Friday and be at the gym Saturday morning working out with Mark. It didn’t matter how I felt; I had to be there for myself and for Mark.

But tragedy struck, Mark, my trainer drowned and that is how I ultimately lost him. We both probably thought it would have been the other way around, Mark losing me to cancer, but fate decided otherwise. I had a hard time going back to the gym after losing him. I kept thinking about how much he helped me and how he would want me to keep doing what he taught me. Because of the pain of losing him, I switched to a different gym for a while, but it just wasn’t the same. I came back to Marks’ place, where we started.

Going to the gym is still hard. And you know what, it hurts! Most of the time it even hurts just getting out of bed. The back pain, the numbness in my feet, the occasional “spiders on my back”, the nausea and headaches, these things are still there. And I’ve had quite a lot of challenges on my way. Covid hit, I had to get my appendix removed, I even caught a brain-eating fungus. But so what? I am still going to the gym. I owe it to myself and to Mark. To hell with this cancer! Exercise has been shown to improve the lives of cancer patients.

For me it definitely did, and it still does every day.

Chris Taylor with MUTC founder Trevor Maxwell at the 2023 Gathering of Wolves men’s cancer retreat in Delevan, NY