"Cancer is the best thing that ever happened to me": Stan Walker's miracle comeback
Australian Idol winner Stan Walker is set to go back on tour after focusing on his health battle over the last few years, during which he underwent bouts of surgery to treat his stomach cancer.
The 28-year-old will begin his Australian tour in early August, two years after having his stomach removed.
“Cancer is the best thing that ever happened to me,” Walker told Sunrise in an interview aired on Tuesday morning.
“It allowed me to be, like, reborn in every way. It’s like I had to die to be reborn again, and that made me realise I’m not gonna wait for nobody to tell me … what I can do. I want to go hard and I want to go right in with everything and live my wildest dream.”
The New Zealand singer carried the CDH1 gene mutation, which had been responsible for the cancer deaths of 25 of his family members and gave him an 80 per cent chance of contracting the disease.
In 2017, Walker was diagnosed with stomach cancer after doctors found 13 tumours inside his body.
Walker said he spent months doing rehab and undergoing major operations.
“If I hadn’t done the operation, I would for sure be dead by now,” Walker told WHO last year.
“To be honest, I can honestly say going through that cancer thing, and the last however many years of everything, I am so thankful – because I haven’t been this happy in so long. I can look at myself and 100 per cent back myself that I’ve got this.”