Cancer survivor raises awareness with 2000-mile rally



Not content with beating testicular cancer, intrepid Dave Cook has set off on a 2000-mile One Ball Rally.

24-year-old Dave set off from the Clock Tower in Ormskirk to Istanbul in a black cab last Friday (March 21 2008) to raise awareness of the disease. He will be accompanied by friends Adam Bell, Martin Pilkington and Paul Ashton.

Dave was diagnosed with testicular cancer in January 2007 and received gruelling treatment from March to June.

He said: "We wanted to raise awareness because testicular cancer is quite a taboo subject but it's life or death. We wanted to get young men interested."

Dave's sense of humour about the disease is evident in the name of his expedition, a play on the famous Gumball Rally. He also got number plates with NADS on but can't use them because of problems with the DVLA.

"You've got to laugh about it rather than get too worked up. We wanted to show men going through it that there's life after it and you can have a sense of humour."

He wanted to praise the efforts of his friends.

"They've all worked really hard, we've still got proper jobs so a lot of it has been done in our dinner hours."

They bought the black cab, christened Betty, on e-bay for £700.

The "eye catching" Big D Nuts girl and family and friends waved off Dave and the lads who will travel through Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Dave expects the trip to take two weeks. He said that beating cancer hade made him "realise my own mortality and want to see more of the world."

Dave, who works for Lancashire Museums, also wanted to thank Big D Nuts, HostelWorld, who are contributing free accommodation and Unique Graphics of Southport.

Above all, Dave wants men to be aware of the risks of testicular cancer.

"Even if you have a slight suspicion go to the doctors. The doctors I went to were fantastic, they see it every day."

By Peter Swift





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