Michael Wynne, 58, of Scottsville, has stage-four prostate cancer, but that didn’t stop him walking and hitch-hiking to the Northern Cape with only bottled water and apples in his backpack to raise money for cancer patients.
Mr Wynne started his journey from his home at 6am on Wednesday October 9 and made his way along the R27 and R335, passing Malmesbury – where he got his first lift for 2km – then Piketberg and Moorreesburg.
He arrived in Kenhardt that evening where he stayed the night at his in-laws’ home.
He then started his nearly
1400-km trek again in the early hours of Thursday morning and arrived back home on Friday just after 9pm.
Hitch-hiking had been the hardest part as many motorists had been reluctant to stop, he said.
But once he told them he was on the road to help people, like himself, with cancer, they were glad to help him.
Mr Wynne was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2011 and later it spread to his colon. He is due to go under the knife at Karl Bremer Hospital on Wednesday October 23 to have a small section of cancerous tissue removed from his colon. And next month, at Tygerberg Hospital, he will have surgery on his prostate.
“The aim of my journey was not to fund only my operations but to raise funds for cancer patients I have met along my journey on my BackaBuddy campaign and to raise awareness around the disease.”
But when Mr Wynne went online on Monday – his birthday – to see how his crowdfunding campaign was going he got a big shock: his BackaBuddy profile had disappeared.
“I believe that God will help me and the other cancer patients. This has made me sad but has given me the power to do another walk to raise funds for those who have become my friends.”
BackaBuddy’s Zane Groenewald told Northern News that Mr Wynne’s profile had been buzzing last week but now “it was nowhere to be found”.
“It must have been closed or deleted but an existing profile can be made up again,” he said.
To help Michael Wynne, contact him at 076 549 6237.