Chris Reason 'WHAT CANCER TAUGHT ME'

CELEBRATING 20 YEARS IN REMISSION WITH THE FAMILY HE NEVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE

Chris Reason remembers the exact moment he decided to summon an inner strength and fight like hell to beat the cancer that was eating away at his body, slowly killing him.

"There's a great moment of clarity that happens," Chris, 57, tells New Idea exclusively. "You have this moment of realisation that you have one of two choices - you fight or you give up and it's a pretty obvious choice.

"In the middle of all that maelstrom of chemotherapy and operations, I suddenly had this realisation - I want to live. It was a special moment for me that I look back on."

It's been 20 years since Chris got the all-clear after beating cancer for the second time. To mark the anniversary, the very hospitable Channel Seven reporter has thrown open the doors of his stunning Sydney home and invited us in for a candid chat over a cuppa.

"The doctors told me there was a good chance the operation wouldn't succeed," Chris shares.

The brave journalist underwent retroperitoneal lymph node dissection, an "extremely complicated" operation that took nine hours of surgery.

"The tumours were in a very difficult place to get to - and this was after months of chemo!" explains Chris. "The only option was to try and operate and remove them. It was very much a case of staring down the barrel.

"I didn't know whether I'd survive that particular episode and there's nothing more confronting than that." Looking back, Chris says being given a potential death sentence when he was just 37 years old and before he had experienced true love and fatherhood - made him realise just how precious life really is.