FOR 50 years he fought various political battles. Now former Cabinet minister, state minister and member of parliament Donald Barrington Buchanan is staging the most serious bout of his life — a fight with colon cancer.

Looking like former Cuban President Fidel Castro these days, Buchanan, 68, affectionately called ‘Danny Buck’, vows that he will put up a valiant fight against the disease, as his father before him did for 28 years.

“I am sick… I am a very sick man,” Buchanan, a four-term MP for South West St Elizabeth, revealed in a Sunday Observer interview at his Caribbean Estates, St Catherine residence last Friday.

“I have cancer of the colon. The doctors diagnosed a stage three tumour in June of this year. Prior to that I had started noticing a loss of weight and that might have gone on for about a year before we actually did the test that led to the conclusion that I was suffering from colon cancer,” he said.

“For the whole month of June I was engaged in all sorts of diagnostic procedures, mostly with Dr Freddie Clarke and his team, but a number of other diagnostic procedures were done by KRIS at Balmoral and Dr Thomas at Seymour Place.

“I started with Dr Charmaine Webb at Medical Associates, who first directed me to go and do these diagnostic analyses. Once we had confirmed that the tumour was malignant and was pretty advanced, the decision was taken that what would be required is for me to go through a period of treatment, chemotherapy and radiation,” said Buchanan, who is also a former trade unionist.

His father, Luther Buchanan, a former MP, was also diagnosed with cancer of the colon, but lived for many years after undergoing surgery.

“My father had an operation for colon cancer at the age of 70, at the University Hospital. Of course, he lived for another 28 years and died at the age of 98, from violence,” Buchanan revealed.

“He was murdered in his house at Little Park (St Elizabeth) by intruders who broke in to rob him in August 1989. My father is an inspiration to me in terms of this particular illness,” said the former general secretary of the People’s National Party.

Two of Buchanan’s older brothers also died of cancer.

“So I know that the Lord decides and determines when He is ready and when He is not for you. I have been very positive about this entire illness. I don’t let it disturb my mind unduly and unnecessarily,” he told the Sunday Observer.

“I co-operate fully and completely with the medical team, in terms of what I have to do, but knowing always that it is the Lord’s will. “I anticipate that, God willing, I will be around for a while,” said Buchanan, acknowledging that “I have not done any political work in the last five months, as I have committed myself to overcoming this illness”.

He plans to demit office at the end of this month as one of two PNP representatives on the Electoral Commission, which he has served for 14 years dating back to the Electoral Advisory Committee in 1990.

He has done 33 days of treatment so far. The first phase of radiation was completed two Fridays ago, following an assessment done at the Radiation and Oncology Unit, for which he received a certificate, which he jokingly termed his “graduation certificate”.

“I am on three weeks rest now, again going through the process of rebuilding the stamina and blood count and so on,” he said.

He described the process so far as initially difficult, but he had managed to grow accustomed to elements of it.

“The first five days of chemo were quite challenging. The main thing was loss of appetite in that period. There was also some measure of nausea, some burning in the system, but after the two weeks of rest, the system was basically back to normal,” he admitted.

Buchanan, who served as minister of labour and social security; minister of water and housing; and minister of information and development under prime ministers PJ Patterson and Portia Simpson Miller, said that he had not lost hope and would not moan and groan about his latest challenge.

“Two things about my illness, one is that I have great trust and faith in God. I believe that the Lord has given me a good and a blessed life. He has given me the opportunity to make a contribution to my country, to my party, to my constituency, to my family and to my community,” said Buchanan.

“The other is that I have lived a very full life and if the Lord is ready for me now, I am ready to go to Him. If the Lord says another year, another two years, another 10 years, another 20 years, I leave it all in His hands,” he said.

The former Excelsior High School student, who joined the PNP in 1958, is looking to pass the baton on to his son Hugh to represent the people of South West St Elizabeth as their MP, at the end of the next general election, due in two years.

Hugh Buchanan, 29, a teacher at Black River High School, is expected to go up against Agriculture Minister Dr Christopher Tufton.

“Whenever he seeks advice I make that advice available to him,” Buchanan said. “Where he is at this moment is more advanced than where I was at his age.”

As for the future, ‘Danny Buck’, a 39-year veteran of the PNP’s National Executive Council, has vowed to continue the fight against cancer and has committed to his mainly fish, chicken, starch, peeled fruits and cooked vegetable diet, hoping that, with continued good medical care and spiritual healing, he will overcome.

Buchanan, in the meantime, enjoys the caring support of his wife, Dorothy, a Toyota Jamaica sales executive and former councillor in the St Elizabeth Parish Council; six children, 23 grandchildren and one great grandchild by his side.