Local Author Feature // Jim Doilney
A Parkite for nearly 50 years, Jim Doilney has been an educator, builder, businessman, politician and now, thanks to his experiences as an adventurer and cancer survivor, he has become an author.
Riding the Scalpel is Jim’s way of sharing his 20-year saga of not allowing a cancer diagnosis put an end to his globetrotting adventures.
Independent and unplanned travel has long been a part of Jim’s life. “I realized I had to be ready to go alone when at age 16, five friends canceled on a spring break trip to Florida,” says Jim. Preferring spontaneity to a specific plan, decades later he took off alone to a different continent. “When I was 37, I flew to Cairns, Australia and biked to Sydney, camping when I couldn’t find hostel beds.”
Jim’s career involved intense forethought and structure so he wanted his travels to be the opposite. “My point was to do ‘different’. When my life and work was all planning, I wanted trips with no plan,” he explained. “When home was all about luxury and comfort, I wanted weeks with no luxury and only the comfort I could create if lucky. It actually worked.”
About 20 years ago, Jim got the news no man wants to hear. He had prostate cancer. “Back then, the doctors basically offered you only 3 choices of treatments; radical surgery, radiation and chemo. I call it butcher me, bake me or burn me. They usually get most of the cancer but they can leave you--more often than not—with really unpleasant after-effects that often make going to the bathroom or romance a whole, new, lousy experience.”
Jim’s idea was to get off the beaten path and find a better way. “My journeys across the globe prepared me to search for a better answer for prostate cancer. I found one.”
Jim hopes any man over 50, especially one dealing with prostate cancer and those who love him, will take the time to read his book.
Riding the Scalpel co-written with Rick Barrow, is available from the website ridingthescalpel.com, Amazon, or here in Park City at Dolly’s Bookstore and The Corner Store.