From the outside, 32-year-old Adelaide man Hugo Toovey appears to be a typical everyday young Australian. However, the past 10 years of his life have been anything but normal. Hugo is a two-time cancer survivor — and the founder of what he calls a “global youth movement”, known as 25stayalive. Now a Major in the Australian Army, Hugo was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2013, aged 21. He recovered but, just five years after that diagnosis, he was found to have bowel cancer.
Hugo recalled the doctor saying to him, “The only silver lining is testicular cancer has probably saved your life”. “As a young 26-year-old bloke, there is no way I would have gone off to a doctor and had a colonoscopy otherwise,” Hugo says. “It’s the reason I am here and it’s a lesson in early detection, seeing your GP and having checkups.” Doctors told him the cancer would spread beyond the bowel, so he had surgery to remove his large bowel, entire colon and rectum.