Retired Hamilton police officer Mike Thomas fights for his life, tries to help others

No one gets to write the end to their story.

Still, this is not how Mike Thomas imagined it.

I didn't think anything would take me down. I can't believe it."

On Saturday morning, he muscled through pain in his lower back and spine, heading out the front door, the burn of a frigid wind on his face.

He balanced on his cane, bent down and picked up the newspaper off his driveway.

Holy crow it was cold this morning," he says, in the genial vernacular that long ago got him tagged with the nickname Jeepers" as a Hamilton police officer.

Thomas still chuckles easily, but his voice on the phone can sound tired and frayed.

He worked 35 years as a Hamilton cop, including more than six years in major crime, investigating some of the city's most grisly murders, including the case of a woman's remains found in a field in Flamborough.

One night early in his career, as a six-foot-two, 235-pound rookie on foot patrol downtown, he got sucker-punched by a guy outside Peaches bar at King and Catharine streets.

Worst part for Thomas was having his shattered contact lens plucked from his eye at the Hamilton General ER.

You get plastered in the face, you fight through it, right?" Thomas says, remembering the moment. The rule is you don't go down."

He missed just four days in all his years on the police service, but says in the end the tough-it-out approach hurt him more than helped.

He's talking about a more recent blow: a diagnosis of Stage 4 prostate cancer a year and a half ago, on July 9, 2019 when he was 59.

The prognosis is obviously not good."

In hindsight the early signs were issues he had with urination, but also pain in his hip that caused him to limp for about six to eight months.

People would say, that's a bad limp you got there.' I fought through it, figured I'd heal, but it never did."

He retired from policing at 54, and one year later took a job as an internal security investigator for Hydro One. He has enjoyed the work, supervising staff under him, some of them former cops.

Prostate cancer is curable, especially if detected early. Thomas wishes he had sought medical attention sooner, and that when he did, he advocated for himself rather than wait politely for an opening with his family doctor: It's what we do, right?"

At the time he had waited even further for an assessment for a possible hip replacement, which was the initial tip-of-the-iceberg diagnosis.

By the time he was examined at Juravinski Cancer Centre, they discovered cancer in his prostate, but it had spread to his lymph nodes, through his pelvis, up his spine to his ribs and shoulder blades.

So it was super advanced. They got me into treatments immediately. I told my new doctor: you're a lucky guy, because I'm a good patient, and I'm not going anywhere."

He had a round of radiation, and chemotherapy, to try and stop the spread in his back.

When that ultimately failed, he was invited to participate in a clinical trial for a new drug, called Palbociclib. He says he was one of 500 people around the world on the treatment.

It lasted four months but did not work and he was taken off it last week.

The plan now is to try another round of chemotherapy. He received a blood transfusion last Friday to get his body ready for it.

The pain has been tough to endure, the throbbing in his legs some days is beyond description. He takes heavy pain medication as needed, when he can't bear it.

He has not stopped working and is still managing cases, consulting with his staff. As Thomas sees it, the alternative of sitting around and wondering about his future, reflecting on mortality, is not an option.

I know a person who died of this within a year of the diagnosis. So it's disheartening to know that. But I've got a fight in me like you wouldn't believe."

He decided early last year to begin giving health awareness talks, to share his experience as a cautionary tale for others.

He has addressed groups of hydro employees and urged early detection: advocate for yourself, you know your body best," get checked. Do not wait like he did.

It helps his presentations that he kept detailed notes of his experiences with cancer all along: Typical police officer, right?"

He figures he's spoken to about 500 people so far, from individuals to group talks, and has no plans to stop.

He lives with his wife, Lucy, and they have two grown kids; Mark, who works in security, and Lindsey, who is a Hamilton Police dispatcher with whom Thomas loves talking shop.

When he was growing up in Hamilton in the 1970s, Thomas watched the old police shows on TV, where Hollywood usually depicted good cops doing the right thing.

There had been no police officers in his family, but when he got older, he figured he had a pretty decent moral compass for right and wrong. It seemed a natural fit.

At the job interview panel they asked: Why do you want to be a police officer?'" he says.

And the answer is, you want to do good for the community. That's what it really comes down to. Serve and protect' is not just a catch phrase, right? And I don't think that ever really stops."