‘The cancer will

Grant vows to fight for his family and friends

A DUNDEE bodybuilder has vowed to defeat cancer — despite doctors telling him he has just two years to live.

Grant Coutts, of Kirkton, was placed third at the international Mr Olympia contest a year ago — while he was carrying a large tumour on his kidney.

The 45-year-old was then diagnosed with white cell carcinoma with a CT scan showing it had infected his liver, lungs and kidneys.

The dad-of-three underwent emergency surgery to remove the infected kidney and a further scan gave him a positive outlook.

However, he received a devastating setback when doctors found that the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes and bones.

With immunotherapy treatment, medical experts have now given him between one and two years to live.

Grant — whose three children are Paige, 22, Lisa, 18, and three-year-old Grant — today told the Tele that he is “determined to prove the doctors wrong”.

He said: “The first thing I said when they told me the diagnosis was ‘That’s your opinion’.

“I told them that they aren’t dealing with a normal person. To be a world class bodybuilder you need to have something different about you — the will to win.

“I believe wholeheartedly that I will be able to defeat this disease, no matter what the doctors say.

“I am still doing everything I did before. I am at the gym working out every day.

“If you give in to cancer that is when it takes you. I truly believe that once you let the cancer beat you there is no chance — I won’t let that happen.

“It is about keeping a positive mindset and that is something I have.

“I look at my partner and my kids and it motivates me.

“I can’t leave them behind because I am supposed to be there for them.”

Grant said he had been taking strength from the support he had received from his partner Kerry and friends who have reached out to him.

He said he has also had a considerable amount of support from Anton Putka, who runs the gym he attends.

When Richard King, one of Grant’s bodybuilding colleagues, found out about the situation that the man who had acted as his mentor through his first bodybuilding contest was in, he started a fundraising campaign to send him and his family away on holiday.

Richard — who is a cancer survivor himself — said he i mmediately reached out to Grant to guide him through the process much like Grant had done for his first bodybuilding contest.

He said: “I was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2010. I was one of the first people that Grant confided in because he knew I had been through the same situation.

“I set up the fundraising page because I wanted to do something good for him and his family.

“If the worst comes to the worst I

Grant with his young son, also Grant. The bodybuilder has been told he has terminal cancer.