Peter Dornan AM, named 2020 Queensland Senior of the Year last month, was a fit and active 52 when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
It knocked the hell out of the Brisbane physiotherapist, now 76.
For one thing, the average age of diagnosis is 63. For another, he was embarrassed.
"I didn't know what my prostate was or what it did. I'd done everything right with my life and here I was, a health professional, with a life-threatening disease," he said. "I was supposed to be invincible and now I was vulnerable.
"And because virtually any treatment you had had side-effects, it was very hard to work out what to do for treatment.
"But I didn't consider them too much - you just heard the words 'cancer' and 'we're going to save your life'. So I just said 'get rid of it' and that left me with the side-effects."
These were extreme incontinence, impotence and the resulting depression.
"I was using about six pads a day so I couldn't work. Suicide was an option but my silent inner voice said 'No, you can do better than that'.
"That's when I started to look at why I was so upset about life and pain and erectile dysfunction and all the things I was going through.
"I had to get help. So I put an ad in the paper and about 70 men and their partners turned up on the first night.
Back then, he said, men weren't putting up their hands to say they had the disease.
"They just didn't know what to do and were reticent to be seen as sick. But once they saw the meeting was for men, they all came along."
What started as a dozen or so men meeting monthly in his rooms expanded within two years to a support group reaching 1000 men.
From 32 groups around Queensland, today there are 170 groups nationwide under the umbrella of the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia, the recipient of funds raised though the Movember campaign.
Peter said that since homo sapiens first evolved, men have identified themselves by the "three Ps": protect, provide and procreate.
"We didn't want to be seen by the man in the other cave as weak. But that's all changed now. Men have to take responsibility for our own health. We have to drop our ivory tower of manhood."
Peter said the groups have three aims: to "educate ourselves for a start to find out why we were so upset; what we could do about the side effects"; to educate the public so that every man "knew what their prostate was, where it was and how to be aware of it"; and to stimulate research into the disease.
Nowadays Peter has stepped back from the foundation to focus more on men's health activism.
"We have to say if something is wrong with my body, I need to get it checked out - heart, lung, liver, erectile dysfunction, deafness. The change has come from ourselves."
Peter has racked up a remarkable list of achievements over the years, something the award judges obviously took in naming him 2019 Queensland Senior of the Year.
He received a grant to research incontinence, leading him to design a successful program to treat the condition.
He has written nine books, including one on managing incontinence and two drawing from his specialist knowledge of pelvic pain, for which he also developed a world-recognised management program.
Still actively involved as a physio, Peter continues to treat both men and women suffering pelvic pain.
He is a director of the board of the Cancer Council of Queensland, for which he has helped raised significant funds.
In his earlier years he was physiotherapist for sporting teams including the Queensland Reds, the Wallabies and the Kangaroos. He is a foundation member of the National Rugby League Coaching Panel.
A sportsman himself, he is a foundation fellow of the Australian Sports Medicine Foundation.
It's a busy life but one he says he keeps in check.
"What's given me longevity is that after working 10 years full-time as a sports physio, I got exhausted," he said.
"So I divided my life up: now I pigeonhole my day. So I do some sculpture, some writing, some singing. For the last 40 years I've done everything in balance. "
One of his proudest moments came after his prostate cancer recovery, when he scaled Mount Kilimanjaro at the age of 60. His sense of elation about the accomplishment is evident to this day.
Interestingly, Peter's wife of 52 years, Dr Dimity Dornan AO, a speech therapist, received the same Queensland seniors award in 2018 after setting up a charity to teach deaf babies how to talk. His pride in her shines through.
Between them, it all sounds a lot - they also have a daughter, Melissa, a son, Roderick, and four grandkids - but Peter says they always make time for a "cocktail" hour to talk, go through the day's events and sort out any problems.
To find out more about prostate cancer or to find a support group, visit prostate.org.au
