The six-time Olympic champion has only between two and four years to live while his wife Lady Sarra Hoy is battling multiple sclerosis
Sir Chris Hoy‘s wife used a simple three-word term to help her husband through his devastating cancer diagnosis. The Olympic cycling legend revealed last week that he has only between two and four years to live after his prostate cancer spread to his bones.
Sadly, around the same time, his wife Lady Sarra Hoy was diagnosed with an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system. Extracts from Sir Chris’s memoir ‘All That Matters: My Toughest Race Yet’ have now been published in the Sunday Times, giving further insight into what the family has gone through.
Edinburgh-born Sir Chris, 48, said there were three words said by the doctor that Sarra, 40, clung to in order keep his spirits up. He writes: “Hearing the word ‘cancer’ has had an immediate and profound effect on me, and not just me.
“Next to the doctor, the nurse’s eyes fill with tears. One moment to the next is a blur and then, before I know it, I’m up and out of the chair, the appointment over. In one short moment, life has changed irrevocably. All I can see in these early moments is this damning diagnosis, its finality.
“But Sarra is more upbeat. She hangs onto the words ‘years and years’ and keeps repeating them to me. Gradually, I am better able to see that there will be more of a future than I thought.”
Sir Chris, who has won six Olympic gold medals, said his wfe has been “the centre of my life” since they met in 2006. He described how her own health story started with a “tingling in her face and tongue” and her MRI appointment took place just a week after Sir Chris was given his own cancer bombshell.
She kept her diagnosis secret from Sir Chris for a month, only telling him in December last year. Just before Christmas, she was told the MS was “active and aggressive”. Sir Chris recounts her explaining to the consultant he had been diagnosed with stage four cancer, adding: “I need you to help me outrun this.”
He says while many days Sarra is fine, there are others she “struggles with pains in her arms and hand”. Paying tribute to his wife, he says: “Sarra has amazed me with all that she has faced.
“She has supported me and encourages me every step of the way, but rarely speaks about her own symptoms. She tries to stay focused on the here and now and controlling what she can by staying as active, healthy and strong as she can for as long as she can.
“My favourite thing in all this is that she has recently taken up piano lessons again, having played it throughout her life. The challenge of getting back to her old grade eight level helps to keep her hands active and her mind healthy. Hearing her play lifts my spirits and I hope one day to buy her a baby grand piano for the front room.
“She says no in case her hands give up on her due to the MS, but we have to aim high. We have to have faith that the treatment is doing its job, effectively halting the MS in its tracks.”
