Axed Survivor NZ star says he won the bigger battle
Taranaki fan favourite Josh Hickford has been voted off TV game show Survivor NZ.
But the 28-year-old said he won the survival battle that mattered the most – the one he fought against cancer.
Hickford was voted off at the end of last night’s episode, after 17 days of living off rice and beans beside Lake Vajiralongkornin in Khao Laem National Park, western Thailand.
Hickford, of New Plymouth, said his battle with hodgkins lymphoma was ‘‘quite the parallel’’ to his time on show.
‘‘They’re both situations that demanded resilience,’’ he said. ‘‘They’re quite comparable; there’s a villain on each one too.
‘‘Luckily I won the one that counted.’’
In 2017, Hickford found out he had hodgkins lymphoma and went through months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
When he found out he had gone into remission he immediately applied for Survivor NZ.
He expected the game show to be difficult, but the reality surprised him.
‘‘It was brutally tough,’’ Hickford said. ‘‘Definitely the hardest thing I’ve done.
‘‘There’s no escape . . . you’re constantly hungry.’’
Hickford lost 10 per cent of his body weight while on the show – ‘‘it’s basically half a kilogram a day’’.
He called his exit a ‘‘complete blind side; I didn’t see it coming one bit’’.
‘‘You literally felt numb after it,’’ he said. ‘‘It was like being told someone you knew had died.’’
However, he was quite flattered by the efforts that had to be undertaken to vote him off the show.
Hickford said other players shook his hand, lied to his face and chose to forfeit a challenge – which was easy to win – to get to tribal council and write his name down.
‘‘They did pretty much everything they had to do to get me out.’’
In saying this, Hickford said he would do it all over again.
Part of the reason he applied for Survivor NZ was to share his cancer story, and hopefully work to set up mentoring for people who are in the position he was once in.
He is now working with the Cancer Society, has spoken at local schools and has been approached by international cancer societies.