Tipperary consultant providing support for people to survive the odds in life

There are a number of medical diagnoses that bring the word ‘death’ to our mind. Cancer is one of them. These events bring to us more than that: loss of control, feeling of failure, not been good enough.

Going back, or starting a sport for the first time, whatever the age, goes a long way to try to heal, and many times achieve it, the issues mentioned in the above paragraph.

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Dragon Boating is one of these sports and offers something that others do not have. When one is in the boat with twenty-one other people, one must forget the pains and tribulations and become part of the boat engine. We must move like one, knowing that everyone in the boat has gone through the same chapter, and everyone is trying to fight those feelings of, Can I do It? and yes; absolutely YES; get it done.

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In the Final Victory – based on real life events, with the author’s modifications – we have the opportunity of going through the feelings, pains, emotions and growing together, of a group of twenty-two paddlers, all of them suffering from different types of cancer, to achieve the recovery from this condition, some better than others, and achieve ‘victory’. This ‘victory’ is not about getting there first, it’s about surviving the odds and feel healthy again.

It is a great book, that you cannot put down, that will make you laugh, cry and feel the exhilaration of crossing the finish line ahead as a survivor.

Mr T. Fiuza Castiñeira, LMS, MCh, FRCSI
Coach and Patron of SDP and CRC paddlers, Clonmel.