Cocksy faces terminal cancer
‘I’ve had a great life’
When New Zealand’s favourite TV builder John “Cocksy” Cocks designed his dream home in the Coromandel last year, it had to be close to water.
Eight months later, views of the tranquil Tairua River estuary flow past the kiteshaped home, which was funded with life insurance money because the laid-back handyman has terminal kidney cancer.
He’s calling the house his
legacy, a sanctuary for wife Dana, 46, and his three adult daughters to go to whenever they like in years to come.
Cocksy’s just built a sleep-out and next is a shed with an adjoining workshop, where the handyman will make his own coffin.
“I’ve got an old Holden station wagon that’s going to be the hearse – everything has to be organised,” laughs the 52-year-old, who is in high spirits and surprisingly fit, despite being told he had two years to live in August 2016.
When we chat with him, Cocksy’s taking a break from renovating an old caravan sitting on blocks outside. He’s stripped the corrugated interior and painted it aqua, before building beds, drawers and a table to fill the backyard accommodation.
In spare moments, he’s penning a book about living with the cruel disease, which he hopes to publish late next year. “The running name is CancerSuxandLifeRulz, which is very ’80s and a bit of a joke name,” the avid poetry writer tells. “There are a lot of tears and laughs – I take the piss a bit.”
Fans of the friendly DIY expert would expect nothing less after falling for his wit when he starred in TV shows MyHouse,MyCastle, April’s Angels and Cocksy’sDayOff. There were also his
CelebrityTreasureIsland days, where his hunter-gatherer skills proved impressive and Kiwis witnessed how a fondness for the ocean runs through his veins.
He thanks a childhood spent at Cooks Beach in the Coromandel for his love of the sea. “I started surfing at 10 and Mum would drop me at Hot Water Beach to surf all day, before she picked me up at sundown or I hitch-hiked home,” he recalls. “Without the ocean, being on it to surf and under it to dive, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. I might as well not be here.”
Fittingly, he’s spending Christmas catching crayfish, kingfish and scallops to cook for his family, before relaxing under a sun umbrella on the Tairua sands. He’s He s hoping the tumour ur in his spine doesn’t cause too much pain, and that his is hands and feet won’t ache from rom the trial drug Cabozantinib antinib he’s on.
“The e pain comes and goes,” explains ns Cocksy, who was diagnosed osed with kidney cancer on Anzac zac Day in 2016 after finding g blood in his urine. “I thought ht it was a knock to the kidneys ys during a rugby game, but a week later, a scan found a 116mm mm growth all over and around d my kidney. They cut me open en and pulled it out.”
Four r months later, he was told the he cancer – which had spread d to his lungs and spine – was terminal. Cocksy admits he’s more worried about how his family mily will cope when he’s gone than han his own suffering.
“It was a bit of a shock to them,” ” he tells. “The biggest trauma a is the grieving process. I’ve lost st friends and can imagine ne they’ll be pretty numb. Sure, I’ll miss out on things like being a grandfather, but I’ve e had a pretty good life. I’ve surfed rfed all around the world, caught big fish fifish and
done everything I set out to.”
Cocksy hopes talking about his illness will draw attention to the Cancer Society of New Zealand and its nighttime half-marathon called Walking Stars. Aiming to raise $50,000 for vital cancer research, the 21km race has almost 4000 participants, who will set off from Auckland Domain on November 24.
Cocksy, a guest speaker at the opening ceremony, plans to walk half the route. “I wanted to give something back and I used to run before the tumour in my back.”
He’ll rely on morphine, as he does most days when he “keeps pushing the boundaries”.
Recently back from a surfing trip in Fiji, topped off with family time in Samoa, Cocksy says a stint on the waves in Tonga could be next. Mostly, though, he’s focusing on putting his heart and soul into the family home.
“Just because my daughters aren’t in nappies, they still need their father.”
Cocksy has made sure to use hard-polished floors so his beloved mastiff-Labrador mastiff Labrador cross Biggie Smalls can run around and so people don’t worry about walking sand inside. There are large windows that look out at Mount Paku, the backdrop of his childhood.
“I’m where I need to be, here in Tairua,” says Cocksy, whose home is in a trust. “This is my turangawaewae, my place where I belong.”