One Leamington man's dream to finally finish restoring a 1970 Plymouth Road Runner he purchased more than four decades ago hit a bump in the road when he was diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer.
Paul Krueger, 68, has been married to his wife Mary for 42 years and they've raised three children. He's called Leamington home his entire life.
Annual screening has been a part of Krueger's routine for the last ten years.
Then in March, 2014 everything changed. That's when Krueger was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer.
"I'm traditionally an optimist and I've continued on with the positive attitude to be optimistic and enjoy the days that I have that are good, and every one is good right now," he says. "There's no point in living in the negative if you can live in the positive."
Often times Krueger says the diagnosis can be a very difficult thing for his family to deal with.
"I think they're handling it OK, sometimes I think less well than I'm handling it," Krueger says. "We have a close family and we have faith -- that all helps."
A surgery in June found the cancer had spread rapidly, beyond what the surgeon said he's able to remove. Twelve biopsies were taken, all twelve showed signs of cancer.
Throughout all of this. Krueger says he's learned to be his own advocate -- ask questions, see multiple doctors and keep all of his medical records.
However, anger was one emotion that surfaced when Krueger was diagnosed.
"Anger that even though I had been seeing a urologist for ten years, he had not picked up on the fact that there was cancer there," he says. "Some of the blood work results we got after the diagnosis indicated he should have done something much sooner than he did."
Despite his experience he still insists all men get screened on a regular basis. In fact, Prostate Cancer Canada recommends men get tested for prostate cancer in their 40s instead of waiting until they're 50.
(Photo courtesy Canadian Cancer Society)
Last year, the Canadian Cancer Society estimated 24,000 men would be diagnosed with prostate cancer. On average that's 66 Canadian men diagnosed each day, 11 expected to die from the cancer on a daily basis.
June is Men's Health Month and by sharing his story Krueger wants to provide hope to anyone in a similar situation.
Krueger says he lives a healthy lifestyle, takes vitamin supplements and a relatively new drug call Zytiga. It's designed to treat men with prostate cancer that has spread to other parts of the body.
At one point things were getting worse, but he says now life is looking a lot more positive. The treatment isn't impeding his way of living and Krueger says he's able to be as active as he wants to.
"With the positive results we've had in the last six months it certainly does change my outlook," he says. "I'm looking farther down the road to do some travelling and other projects to work on."
One of the projects he was able to complete was restoring his 1970 Plymouth Road Runner. It has something he's been chipping away at for the last 12 years and Krueger says cancer motivated him to finally complete his dream.
"I didn't know what the diagnosis was and what my future was with cancer," he says. "With encouragement from my wife, if I'm going to get this car on the road and be able to drive it, now is the time to 'get 'er done' as they say."
Fully restored and ready to go, Krueger says he's excited to hit the road this summer and continue to put cancer in the back seat.