Survivor season 33 runner-up Ken McNickle revealed he was diagnosed with cancer, sharing details about his symptoms in a powerful message.
“So here we go … I deliberated for a while about whether to share or not but I ultimately decided to because I’m hoping this chapter in my story can help others,” McNickle, 43, wrote via Instagram on Wednesday, June 3. “I’ve made some mistakes in the process and should have taken care of myself better and sooner. But, here we are.”
McNickle noted that he would be sharing more information soon, adding, “But this is enough for today. As I’ve said before, if you have a health concern, don’t sit on it. Get yourself checked. There’s no valid reason not to. Not one.”
In the social media post, McNickle shared his initial reaction to his diagnosis.
“That moment when everything becomes muted. The doctor sounding like the teacher from Charlie Brown. You realize nothing is registering other than that one word,” he captioned a photo of himself at the doctor’s office. “And then the flood of questions. Why now? What did I do to deserve this? Why didn’t I come in sooner. After everything else, now this?”
McNickle recalled how he struggled to come to terms with his new reality. “Then the feeling of defeat a you hear the words ‘f*** it’ start to creep in,” he wrote. “The beginning of the process of giving up. And then I think about my daughter and my lady and the life we want and how there’s another option.”
He continued: “Because there’s always a choice. I’m choosing optimism, health, happiness and the knowing that the spirit has me. And most importantly, I’m choosing love.”
The former reality star posted a follow-up video where he candidly discussed the symptoms that led to him seeking treatment.
“I waited almost a year until my skin was tearing open to get this checked. Had I gone in sooner, it would have been a simple procedure,” he explained. “Not a three-inch hole in my chest.”
McNickle expressed his regret about waiting “almost three months seeing blood fill the stool every morning before getting checked out and confirmed that my insides were tearing open.”
“I waited until that lump on my testes had grown to the size of the other two before getting it checked,” he added. “I was wondering why so many times I have been so f***ing stupid. And then it hit me, flashes from my childhood and adolescence where I heard the words, ‘Stop crying. Don’t be a baby. Don’t be a bitch. Don’t be a pussy. Just be a man.’ And yeah, I am thinking that had something to do with it.”
McNickle ended his post with a call to action. “There’s an epidemic in regards to men’s health and we’re not giving it enough attention,” he explained. “We need to be talking more about why men are 50 percent less likely to go to a doctor for physical ailments and 60 percent less likely to get help with mental and emotional issues. Why do you think it is? What’s [sic] needs to change?”
Fans met McNickle in 2016 during season 33 of CBS’ long-running competition series, which was themed Millennials vs. Gen X. He and fellow finalist Hannah Shapiro lost out to Adam Klein, who was unanimously voted the winner with all 10 jury votes.
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