I knew what I was getting into when I married a nurse, or at least I thought I did. 

I shacked up – proudly I might add – with a nurse coming from a long line of nurses. 

Mother, aunt, sister, all proudly serving in the profession of healing and helping the sick and vulnerable. What could be more rewarding, I’d wonder?

I thought I knew what came with the territory: long hours, physical and emotional exhaustion, the occasional mood swings not of my own making. It was all there in the unofficial fine print on my marriage certificate to a first line health care worker in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. 

What you don’t see, and couldn’t possibly prepare for, is just how rigorous the act of helping and healing is. The often thankless days and nights, the degeneration of the body in almost real time, the constant need to wear a brave face. The tears that flow from the constant barrage of loss. Seemingly unending waves of loss.

Pandemic Burden

No, you’re never ready for just how heavy the job is. You can spout your hollow yet well-meaning sentiments, your words of compassion and try to come down to the level of worker-bee, but unless you’ve walked a day in their shoes and scrubs, you know nothing. You’ll always know nothing.

Take an already demanding profession and throw in a worldwide pandemic for good measure. A recent study from the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) found that 94 per cent of nurses are experiencing symptoms of burnout, and 50 per cent of nurses said they are considering leaving their jobs over the next year. 

“Frontline health workers have had to shoulder too much of the pandemic burden – worsening patient ratios and forced overtime while facing increased violence, harassment and unsafe workplaces,” shared Linda Silas, President of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) in a release this past March “Nurses across the country are coming together to say enough is enough.”

So what can we do? Aside from the policy-makers and those at the top of the bureaucratic food chain, who can implement real change, what can we, the husbands or wives, the sisters and brothers, friends or work colleagues offer? You sponge it all in. 

Take the stress, the anger, the sadness, the exhaustion. Wear it like armour so your loved one doesn’t have to buckle under the weight of it all. You wear it, because we the layfolk have no idea the weight these workers shoulder. Not a single solitary clue. 

Never enough thank yous

May 9-15 marks National Nursing Week across Canada. It’s an occasion to give our thanks to these tireless workers who make up the bedrock of our healthcare system. 

Let this week be a reminder of what we collectively could and should do for frontline health care workers year-round. Shower them with thank yous. There are never enough thank yous and they generally do make an impact.

Buy a nurse a coffee, send them a card, offer that hug, handshake or genuinely needed pat on the back. These pittances of acknowledgment can only serve to galvanize a workforce in much need of positive emotional reinforcement. 

So thank you nurses. From mine, to yours, and the faceless heroes toiling in the shadows. There are never enough thank yous. 

I’ve always been the kind of person to keep going through any illness – until officially told I’m sick, that is. I’ll go like the dickens until I’m derailed by an actual diagnosis, and then, look out! I turn into a big ol’ sooky baby in seconds. 

I stop going, I stop eating and I start sleeping. In fact, once I’m officially diagnosed, I’m lucky I can get out of bed at all. Give me permission to be miserable, and I’ll milk it for all it’s worth.  

Nothing Going On

Catching COVID was no different, though it did take awhile for the facts to sink in. I had actually been feeling poorly and been enjoying miserable health for over six weeks and had been on antibiotics and over the counter meds for a sinus infection that simply wouldn’t go away. 

Having had many in my lifetime, no pesky drippy nasal cavity could slow me down, and, with the mandatory one or more symptom COVID tests confirming it wasn’t ‘da vid,’ I just kept going full tilt through Christmas. 

The Monday after New Year’s, I crawled out of bed, made a kitchen appearance, then crawled right back in the bunk. Thankfully, I had nothing going on that week and, besides interacting with the same few people day-in-and-day-out, I went no where and did nothing. 

After the holiday exhaustion, I figured, or a possible return of that troublesome sinus infection. I’d just suffer through it, I told myself. 

The end of that week was shaping up to be busy with back-to-back errands and appointments. I prepared to just shake it off and hit giv ‘er. A friend suggested I take a rapid test and see ‘just in case.’ I told my friend I’d likely test myself later that afternoon, though I was sure it was a waste of time. A case of the COVID-possibly-positive guilts saw me sticking the long-as-me-arm swab up to my brain first thing after all. Within second, the ‘C’ line turned blue. 

I had COVID. The day was derailed and I had a few calls to make. I went home and went to bed out of it. A PCR test confirmed the diagnosis a day later, and, luckily, the few unlucky candidates with whom I had interacted with over the week prior to my diagnosis tested negative, though full disclosure; as of press time, one contact tested positive on a rapid test five days after a negative PCR. It’s been quite the COVID circus. 

Rules change almost daily. From who gets tested (no symptom folks who have had contact with a known positive, yes. If you have symptoms, assume you have it and isolate) to what to do if you test positive on a rapid test (no PCR required as of now and, from what I was told, you only contact contacts after a positive PCR.) 

Like a Champ

Isolation requirements have changed, too, so have some guidelines; like start counting from first symptom onset if you have any, or from first case contact if you don’t. And, since testing is now limited, while this province’s COVID positive numbers still climb, the actual virus-positive numbers are much, much higher. 

What hasn’t changed, however, is our attitude towards others. My poor daughter had been part of her school’s “suspected” group and had to endure three stick-up-the-nostril tests in a row and had to have a locked-down holiday. 

Telling her she had to have yet another test and endure another lockdown days after having her freedom was painful. She took the news like a champ. 

The one friend she had interacted with was a darling, as was the mom, and my partner couldn’t have been more of a hero had he worn a cape. 

As for how I’m feeling? Horrid, thanks for asking. I’m exhausted. Breathing takes real effort. My head is constantly full. I don’t care if I ever eat again and I’d rather piss the bed than get up to go to the bathroom. But, I’m assured this won’t last forever, so until I gets rid of da vid, I’ll just lay back and enjoy my poor health to the fullest.

ewfoundland’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Janice Fitzgerald, warned that, at some point, COVID-19 would eventually impact all of our lives. Over the holidays, NL’s Minister of Health, Dr. John Haggie, had fought the good fight, as had MP and Cabinet Minister Seamus O’Regan. 

A Determined Virus

COVID doesn’t care beyond the fact that it can and will affect anyone it comes in contact with. NTV’s Jesse Stirling was struck early, and struck hard, as we learned in part one and two of this three part series. Many know Stirling as the face of NTV’s Meetings with Remarkable People. Grandson to the late, great Geoff Stirling, Stirling’s is yet another strong voice in a long-standing legacy of broadcasting royalty. But status and fame doesn’t protect one from a virus as determined as COVID.  

It was Not to be

Married to the love of his life, Amanda, and father to daughter Olivia, Stirling had the world at his fingertips. As he shared exclusively with The Herald, Stirling has had some medical challenges. He survived a near life threatening heart attack, for one thing, and now, a brush with COVID. Stirling’s encounter with COVID began last August. With plans to head to Newfoundland, and with many interviews planned and booked for his popular inspirational series, Meetings With Remarkable People, Stirling was ready and raring to go. It was not to be. 

Stirling’s COVID battle even involved an interesting vision, or encounter, while at his worst. With little food for over a week, and struggling to get enough oxygen into his body, Stirling “passed out” in the bathtub in his home. 

He had a Vision

“Sometime around day 17, where I just couldn’t take any more, I believe I even cried out to my wife that I need to be taken to the hospital. I knew something was going seriously wrong. At that point, my lungs were under attack. Every breath was an effort and I made it into the bath as that was the only thing that gave me relief from the fever and the cold shivers,” he shared.

It was there he had a vision. “It was this star being and I’m in outer space. It’s like a galaxy-looking place with stars and all that, and the angels are descending some kind of star-lit staircase or star staircase. And they were bringing me to wherever they were going to bring me.” 

There was no feeling of fear. No sense of being threatening. There was only peace. “It looked like I was going to a good place. But I started freaking out and within this vision of my mind’s eye, I’m saying, ‘I can’t go. It’s not my time yet. I have a little girl.’ And so it was the face of my little girl, Olivia, that really made me fight very hard to come back into my body.”

Stirling shared that he wished this story ended with a “happily ever after” but it wasn’t the case. “I wish I could say I immediately felt better and I was great. But it was like bottoming out. I essentially feel like I died for a few minutes on that day, and then I slowly started turning the corner and recovering after that,” he said.

Stirling shared his family worried about his long-term health. 

In fact, Stirling offered that it was his mother, Judy Stirling, to whom he credits with saving his life.

‘I think that saved me’

“She probably saved my life because she was the one saying, ‘you need to start taking IVs’ because I was sweating so much and I was like 20 pounds lighter than I am right now. I did not look good. I was a skeleton and I had nothing left. So she said, ‘please start getting IVs.’ And I did and I think that saved me.”

Stirling was tested “clear” on August 21st, but the battle wasn’t finished. 

“I’m officially now over it, but I’m weakened. The battle with the virus has turned the corner with a negative test, but people still are a little bit afraid that they could die by shaking my hand.”

Stirling says he understands the fear, as he himself was impacted by what’s been called “long COVID.” “I didn’t even know long haul COVID or long COVID was a thing. Had no idea. I had the Delta variant and essentially you still have swelling of the brain afterwards. I think it was August 1st that I had my positive COVID test, so we’re talking August, and all September. It’s now October, and I’m still not feeling great,” he shared. 

There’s no longer flu like symptoms, but he’s not himself at all. 

“I’m just really weak, really down in energy, still a little bit of shortness of breath too. My smell was totally messed up. I used to love the smell of bacon and I could not stand the smell of bacon anymore. Couldn’t smell my coffee. So some neurological, long term stuff was happening with me,” he shared.

More medical visits, and Stirling was told these are things he may have to “live with” for a while. 

“There’s no cure. It’s just time, rest, leading a healthy lifestyle and now everything is trending in the right direction.” Stirling says he’s back “in the game” and thrilled to have finally turned the corner.  

‘I have a goal’

“There’s a whole new season of Meetings with Remarkable People for 2022 in what will be my 20th year, so what an honour. I tried to count them up, all the shows I’ve done over the 20 years, but it’s definitely more than 350. That’s a conservative estimate, and I’m so honoured to have had (Pam Pardy) on the show talking about The Herald.” 

Any top interview subjects, we ask. Mary Walsh, is up there, he admitted.  

“I have a goal to interview all the Newfoundlanders who have been on 22 Minutes and I only have Rick Mercer – who very graciously wanted to do the show but the timing just didn’t work out this time around so I’m going to get him in April – left. Mary Walsh, who I finally had on the show this time around, was another one I had been trying to get, so it was a real honour to finally sit down with her and The Herald helped with that, so thank you.” 

Sitting in The Herald office to chat leading up to the holidays, Stirling shared he felt “right at home.” 

“The Herald, to me, is the premier, number one, most beloved Newfoundland brand. It’s a brand that goes back to 1946 that represents truth and justice and in a practical sense, a little something for everybody. So whether it’s ghost stories or crime stories or celebrity gossip, cartoons, comics or TV listings, there really is something for everyone in this magazine,” he said with pride.

Beloved by Readers

And the longevity of the brand is something he’s proud of, he continued. 

“We were talking about the amount of time The Herald spends in people’s homes. The amount of people that read each issue. How people proactively go out and buy it like a grocery store item. It’s up there with milk, bread, eggs. And my copy of The Herald.”

It stands for so much, he continued.  

“It is a beloved Newfoundland brand and it stands for truth. I think it stand for integrity of reporting and to have a smaller, private, family run enterprise is so unique in today’s media landscape. It’s a real blessing to still have this magazine and have it be so beloved by our readers.”

Stirling offered that The Herald holds a special place in his heart. “I wouldn’t have had this conversation with anyone else. I’ll say that sincerely. And Newfoundlanders have been amazingly supportive to me my whole life, and I was actually reflecting on this the other night. The only successes I’ve ever really had in life outside of marriage and a daughter, all my professional successes have come from Newfoundland and it’s from the support of Newfoundlanders, so I owe this province everything,” he said with passion. 

Stirling hopes that by sharing his story, he gives others hope in these difficult pandemic times. “I hope that my angelic vision can inspire someone. The fact that I’m here today can inspire someone. The fact that I kicked COVID and fought long and hard, and now I’m back, can inspire someone.”

What’s next for Stirling? Let’s hope there’s no more dramatic tales to share, he said with a smile. “Let’s really hope that I’m not coming back next year with another near-death experience. I think a heart attack followed by a long COVID battle, that’s enough drama,” he laughed. 

All Stirling wants is to live a good life, he added in reflection. 

“For now, I’d just like to be a son and a husband and a dad and do whatever I can around the edges to help this Stirling enterprise of media companies go charge forward into the future.” 

That most people will eventually get COVID-19 was one of the messages the province’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Janice Fitzgerald, laid out the day the province of NL moved to a modified Alert Level 4. 

No-skip Covid-19

That’s certainly proven to be the case as many high-profile names announced they had COVID over the holidays. From NL’s Minister of Health, Dr. John Haggie, to Federal MP and Cabinet Minister Seamus O’Regan, to some notable names in the entertainment industry like comedian Lisa Baker and Come From Away star, Broadway’s Petrina Bromley, COVID didn’t skip over anyone, it seemed. 

Road less Travelled 

NTV’s Jesse Stirling was struck early, and struck hard, as we learned in part one. Many know Stirling as the face of NTV’s Meetings with Remarkable People. Grandson to the late, great Geoff Stirling, and son of the vivacious Judy Stirling and Newfoundland Broadcasting President Scott Stirling, the young-gun in a long-standing legacy of broadcasting royalty seemed to have had the world at his fingertips. Married to the love of his life, Amanda, and father to precious daughter Olivia, Stirling would seem to have a life many could only dream of. But, as he’s shared exclusively with The Herald, Stirling has had an interesting road of late. 

Read it Here First 

The previous time The Herald sat down to chat with Stirling, it was about surviving a near life threatening heart attack. Stirling has long been candid with the magazine his grandfather started, so it comes as little surprise that Stirling would want to share his latest brush with illness with Herald readers first.

Stirling’s encounter with COVID began last August. With plans to head to Newfoundland, and with many interviews planned and booked for his popular inspirational series, Meetings With Remarkable People, Stirling was ready and raring to go. So much for best-laid plans, it seems. Stirling shared he felt as if he had “a really bad flu.” Night sweats. Cold shivers. A high temp. Days before he was supposed to get on a flight bound for Newfoundland, the test came back: Stirling was positive for COVID-19. 

The first couple days, he shared, were not that bad. But then the illness took hold. When his oxygen level dipped to the point it was dangerous, he knew he was in for yet another fight of his life. 

When Stirling made the announcement on social media, he was still optimistic. “In my mind, the whole time up to this point, I’m still thinking I can save this trip. I can still tape my shows. I’ve got all these great reservations made at all these fantastic restaurants. I don’t want to give anything up at this point. But then, when my oxygen dipped, my doctor really started freaking out.”

Stirling shared it took a month of “really great medical and self care” to get to the point he could walk the dogs around the block. Because Stirling was struck with COVID fairly early in the pandemic, there was backlash. “You wouldn’t be embarrassed to admit online if you had diabetes or if you had high blood pressure or pneumonia, but there’s so much political charge and social stigma behind Coronavirus that I had my own struggles with the news,” he admitted. 

The Delta variant was shown to particularly be hard on middle aged men, he continued. When you add the pressure from those online, then the road was not smooth. Most, Stirling offered, were kind. “‘Sorry, you got sick. Hope you get better.’ When you’re really sick, there’s nothing else you want to hear. Those messages were great.”

They ‘crushed it’

Others challenged the fact that he was vaccinated (he was) while others claimed he couldn’t have the virus because he was vaccinated. 

“People said I was a liar. ‘You can’t get Coronavirus if you’ve been vaccinated’ or ‘you should have beaten it by now, you’re not doing it right.’ Some started to question which medicines are right for this kind of thing. A real blaming the victim began. And then some questioned how I caught it in the first place. ‘Oh, you were traveling,’ I heard. It’s almost like I deserved it since I was out doing business and living my life.” 

Stirling’s wife and daughter both caught the virus, he added, but both “crushed it” he said, and had mild symptoms. “I felt horrible about that, but my wife was under the weather for three days and didn’t miss a minute of work and my little girl had one night of a fever and then totally bounced back the next day.”

Still wanting to be cautious, the family remained under self-imposed lock-down to make sure. It was tough, he shared. Olivia didn’t feel sick, so keeping her out of her beloved daycare was tough on the family, for one thing. Plus, Stirling offered, he really was no help at home. 

“I give immense credit to my wife for keeping the whole family going because literally getting out of bed and going to the tub was a Herculean task for me.” 

Stirling was so ill, he even experienced what he called an “incredible encounter with angels.”

“That’s the craziest part of it. And I know people might think this is a little out there or doubt that it happened, but this really did happen to me,” he opened. 

‘It’s not my time yet’

He wasn’t getting better, he continued, so he was receiving prayers and support from those he knew. “When you haven’t eaten for 10, 11, 12 days, that presents a host of problems on its own. Sometime around day 17, where I just couldn’t take any more, I believe I even cried out to my wife that I needed to be taken to the hospital. I knew something was going seriously wrong. At that point, my lungs were under attack. Every breath was an effort and I made it into the bath as that was the only thing that gave me relief from the fever and the cold shivers.”

Stirling shared he “passed out” in the tub for about five hours. “I was just in there and while I was in this passed out condition, I had a vision of what appeared to me to be angelic. It was this star being and I’m in outer space. It’s like a galaxy-looking place with stars and all that, and the angels are descending some kind of star-lit staircase or star staircase. And they were bringing me to wherever they were going to bring me.” 

There was no feeling of fear. No sense of being threatening. There was only peace. “It looked like I was going to a good place. But I started freaking out and within this vision of my mind’s eye, I’m saying, ‘I can’t go. It’s not my time yet. I have a little girl.’ And so it was the face of my little girl, Olivia, that really made me fight very hard to come back into my body.”

Stirling shared that he wished this story ended with a “happily ever after” but it wasn’t the case. “I wish I could say I immediately felt better and I was great. But it was like bottoming out. I essentially feel like I died for a few minutes on that day, and then I slowly started turning the corner and recovering after that,” he said.

Stirling admitted his family worried about his long-term health. In fact, Stirling shared his mother, Judy Stirling, probably saved his life.

On Friday, January 21st in part 3, find out how his mother saved his life, plus, Stirling’s battle with Long-Term COVID and how his commitment to the empire his grandfather created, inspired him 

Many know Jesse Stirling as the face of NTV’s Meetings With Remarkable People.  Grandson to the late, great Geoff Stirling, and son of the vivacious Judy Stirling and highly respected Newfoundland Broadcasting President Scott Stirling, this young-gun from a long-standing legacy of broadcasting royalty  seems to have it made. 

Married to the love of his life, Amanda, and father to precious daughter Olivia, Stirling would seem to have a life many could only dream of. But Stirling has had an interesting road of late. The last time The Herald sat down to chat with Stirling, it was about surviving a near life threatening heart attack. 

Stirling has long been candid with the magazine his grandfather started, so it came as little surprise that he would want to share his latest brush with illness with Herald readers first.

Wiser words were perhaps never spoken when Stirling began the chat with, “It seems to be the year where it’s very hard to make plans and things can get wiped out in an instant.” 

The Best-laid Plans

Stirling’s encounter with COVID began last August. With plans to head to Newfoundland for the warmest months of the year, and with many interviews planned and booked for his popular inspirational series, Meetings With Remarkable People, Stirling was ready and eager to go. So much for best-laid plans, it seems. 

“I started feeling like I had a really bad flu. And we’ve all had a flu, so it wasn’t that scary. I just thought, ‘OK, I’m not feeling the best.’ And then my temperature went up and I had really bad night sweats and cold shivers. And my wife actually said, ‘you should get a COVID test,’ but I was basically in denial about it,” he said.

Stirling was dedicated to hand washing, he added, and out-and-about in California, he wore a mask. He’s also vaccinated. “This doesn’t happen, right? Not when you’ve done everything you were told to do. But sure enough, the test came back and I was positive. And this was the beginning of August.” 

Anguish-Filled

This was days before getting on a flight bound for Newfoundland. 

Stirling became quite ill, he added honestly. “What I found incredible was how anguish-filled, and what a painful experience this was physically and in my mind too. Coronavirus only attacked people who were severely ill or very elderly and I just turned 50, and I am a pretty fit guy. I just thought this doesn’t happen to me. Not now.” But, he added, it did. In the beginning, at least, he wasn’t very ill. But that changed. “The first couple days, it was not that scary. ‘We’ve all had it flu. I can get through this,’ I thought.’ It was when I just wasn’t getting better and it kept getting worse and worse and worse that I got scared,” he shared. 

Cold shivers, goosebumps, night sweats, high fever, stomach flu. Stirling experienced it all. 

“I actually broke a laptop computer projectile vomiting over it. I’m trying to work through this whole thing. And I believe it was at that point I made an actual announcement on social media. Like, in my mind, the whole time, I’m still thinking I can save this trip. I can still tape my shows. I’ve got all these great reservations made at all these fantastic Newfoundland restaurants. I don’t want to give it up at this point. But I need to make an announcement. I know I have to give in when my oxygen level dipped to the point it was dangerous.”

On Wednesday, January 19th in part 2, find out about Stirling’s long  road to recovery and about the log-term impact of ‘Long COVID.’

At 77 years of age, Grandpa Pike (real name Laurie Blackwood Pike), says he’s lived a good life. He’s an accomplished author with many books under his belt, including Grandpa Pike’s Outhouse Reader, Number Two, and Pea Soup for the Newfoundland Soul, for one thing. 

Now, as he faces the biggest battle – a terminal illness – he shared how his  latest book, Sick in Bed, Across Two Chairs, With My Feet Out Through the Window, is the latest in a literary legacy he feels honoured to leave behind. The ‘Sick in Bed’ line is something his father always said, he recalled. 

A Chance Encounter

“Dad was a minister and he’d be in his office working and he’d say ‘if anyone comes, just say I’m not here,’ when he was busy. And we’d say, ‘well, what if anyone comes and says they see your car there and they know you’re home,’ and he’d say, ‘just tell them I’m sick in bed, across two chairs with my feet out through the window.’ It’s a Newfoundland saying, I’m thinking, but I knew it from him,” Pike shared.

Pike, who was not timid when it came to the fact that he has a terminal illness, says he has his sixth book “ready to go” but offered that “chances are good it will never see the light of day publishing-wise” because his illness has advanced. Beaton Tulk’s memoirs, A Man of my Word, was penned by Pike. In fact, it was their shared illnesses that united the two in the first place, Pike shared.   

“(Tulk) and I bumped into each other at the Health Science (Centre) one day and that’s how we ended up getting together to write the book. We both told the other  so we knew all along that we both had a terminal condition.”

Pike has been fighting a metastasizing carcinoma. “There’s no known cause and has nothing to do with lifestyle. Apparently it’s just a random thing that hits. And there’s no known cure, just different courses of medicine that can slow down the spread of it throughout the body,” he shared. With“terrible side effects” to deal with, nothing known to modern medicine seemed to help, he added. 

‘I’m still around’

“I decided in February of last year that there is just no point in putting the body through any more turmoil without any hope of improvement and with the risk of very serious side effects. So I was told I’d be lucky to make it to Christmas. And now, Christmas is over, and I’m still around,” he offered positively.

His only daughter is home visiting, he added, and life is “very much worth living.” In fact, he added, it’s “good to the last drop.” 

“I could go on and on about my complaints. Things that keep me from travelling or from doing other things, but why? I can deal with all that stuff, especially when you were told you might not make it to Christmas and you think, ‘well, it’s all borrowed time now. Every day is a blessing.’ You don’t dwell on the negative you focus on the positive.”

Like the fact that his daughter, an emergency room nurse, was able to spend three weeks over the holidays with her family. “I’ve accepted things, and I think family are quite pleased that I have. I’m 77 and lived a good, long life and I’ve accomplished pretty well everything I wanted to. So, I’m ready,” he said.  

Pike reflected. “I started making notes and writing things down when I was a teenager and while I lost most of those notes when we had a flood in our basement, I found that once you commit something to paper, you sort of remember it,” he shared.

Look at the up-side

Pike’s writings are usually small stories, and with rare exception, they are true tales.  “One of the things that I always wanted to do was write and tell my story. Share some funny stories and hopefully some that may be inspiring or thought-provoking or whatever. I’ve changed names and locations and places to protect somebody who may still be alive or wouldn’t want to be identified, but it’s pretty much autobiographical otherwise.”

 One chapter in his latest book is people he won’t forget. “Every story is about people who meant a lot to me. I don’t know if they’re my favourites of the whole book, but they’re certainly very personal,” he said.

We ask if he feels that he’s leaving a little bit of a legacy behind. He paused. 

“Yes, I do. I do. My daughter has every one of my books, and there’s a lot of stuff in these books that she didn’t know as there were stories she never heard about. So it’s sort of like a history thing for her and for my wife as well. I was 37 when I met my wife so I had quite a bit of life lived before I met her.”

Pike said he always went with a humourous angle when it came to sharing his tales. “I’m not a sports star or a politician. I’m just someone with a story to share. I always felt that people would be more likely to want to read things if I took a lighter approach. That’s how I tackle my illness too. I can focus on the negative, or focus on the positive. I always try and look at the up-side. The reality doesn’t change, but how you feel about it does, and that’s what matters.”

For more, visit grandpapike.com