Audio of From Terminal Cancer to Ironman Finisher at growingbolder.com

Posted on January 15th, 2011 at 5:09 am

In 1994, at the age of 47, Wally Hild was diagnosed with advanced Hodgkin's lymphoma and given less than a year to live.

After nine months of chemo, he beat it. During his treatment, a chance trip to Ironman Canada changed his life forever.

At the time, he couldn't walk more than 10 minutes without stopping to take a rest. But as he watched the race, something inside him changed. He said he turned to his wife and told her he knew that he just had to compete in an Ironman as soon as he could.

And he did.

Wally explains how he learned he had cancer (like many guys, he had been putting off a visit to a doctor when he started suddenly losing weight) and why he never had a "why me?" moment and was never afraid to die.

Instead, he wanted to live more, for his wife and for his teenage children.

Wally explains what he learned about life and how he learned to finally start living life fully when faced with death.

These days, he's in his early 60s and he says he's never felt better mentally, physically or spiritually. He's started a rock band and is learning to paint.

"What (this) taught me basically was to enjoy every moment, every situation, that every 24-hour period of this journey in this life was something to be embraced and to be cherished and to really grab hold of -- which I really hadn't been doing up until that time," Wally says.

Plus find out how he helped his wife overcome her own health crisis in 2000 when she suffered from a massive stroke, only to run her first marathon just two years later.

Wally talks about these experiences in his two books, "From Hodgkin's to Ironman" and "Through the Valley of the Shadow." He's also the subject of a new documentary, also called "From Hodgkin's to Ironman."

Listen to interview and find out how to choose between being a victim or a victor.