Patting the Shark, Tim Baker | Book 84, June 2025

Patting the Shark, Tim Baker | Book 84, June 2025

I picked up Patting the Shark by Tim Baker because I’m in the middle of making my own lifestyle changes and wanted to learn from someone who has faced immense challenges head-on. Tim’s career as a surf writer and journalist is extraordinary. I imagine it comes with its fair share of high stress too.

This book has been on my radar for a while now. I keep starting it and putting it down, but with it due back to the library on Wednesday (and a jam-packed week ahead), I finally carved out time this weekend to read. Between a two-day course (Monday–Tuesday), working nearly 20 hours across those days (not including travel), and my son’s interschool carnival on Monday, my reading capacity is definitely limited. And let’s not forget it’s the final week before the school holidays (thankfully!).

The book’s subtitle, A surfer’s journey to living well with cancer immediately drew me in. I’m looking for ways to make healthier choices, even though I’m tied to a desk most of the day. I hoped to find some golden nuggets that might support my own shifts toward better health.

For context: my mostly sedentary lifestyle, sitting for long hours each day, puts me at greater risk of heart disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, blood clots, and even chronic pain from poor posture. It also slows my metabolism and weakens my muscles and bones not to mention its links to anxiety, depression, and that ever-present feeling of fatigue.

My family history makes these risks feel even more pressing. My grandfather (my mum’s dad) passed away at 90, but his final years were marked by depression, sundowners, heart disease, emphysema, and two types of cancer. He was a carpenter and built caravans when I was a kid, he drank and smoked heavily, habits that ultimately took their toll on his quality of life. Watching him in those later years made it clear to me: that’s not the future I want.

My mum had bowel cancer; her mum passed away from lung cancer. On my dad’s side, there’s a history of diabetes, and one of my cousins died at just 36 after being diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer at 34. Cancer is woven throughout my mum’s family tree, and high cholesterol runs on both sides.

All of this has pushed me to rethink my own habits, and reading Tim’s story feels like a timely companion on this journey.

Tim Baker’s Patting the Shark is a raw, funny, moving, and surprisingly joyful account of living with cancer or, more accurately, learning to live well while living with cancer. What grabbed me most was the chapter about surfing with his son and continuing to surf throughout his treatment. It made me think of my mum; when she was diagnosed, she was adamant that everything should tick along as normal. And it did. She’s been cancer-free for over a decade now.

Tim writes candidly about the dramatic weight loss from his strict diet and exercise, part of his effort to “not feed the cancer.” It’s a concept that has been gaining traction across social media, where so many people talk about healing through food. Tim’s take on it, though, is honest and disarmingly funny. He jokes about posting rainbow-coloured salads and tofu dishes on Instagram, adding, “It’s just as well I have cancer, otherwise I’d be just another sanctimonious wellness wanker.” That line alone had me laughing out loud.

Then there’s his son Alex, who was nine at the time, reassuring his dad that he would be okay because he Googled it. When my mum was diagnosed, we were told explicitly: don’t Google it. If you want to know something, ask the professionals. So we didn’t Google. Ignorance was bliss, and back then, I was in my early twenties, and the internet hadn’t yet evolved into the relentless information machine it is today.

Tim’s humour runs alongside these deeply personal moments. He shares a story about making his own oil, including an unexpected adventure with cannabis brownies made from the leftovers. “The kids will be home in two hours. I have to get it together. This seems a preposterous position for an adult cancer patient to be in. How old am I anyway?” These human, messy details make his writing resonate far beyond medical facts.

He also writes about the isolation that cancer can bring how “How are you?” becomes a rehearsed script, and the awkwardness that forces people to hide behind basic, polite exchanges rather than confronting their own fears of mortality. I thought about my cousin Danny. He had monthly chemo, and even after surgery on his 34th birthday, he knew he’d be on treatment for life. Eventually, he decided to stop for a while, too tired to keep going. It didn’t take long before he collapsed at home, a tumour discovered in his kidney marking the beginning of the end.

When he was sick, people he hadn’t seen in years showed up at his house. I remember wondering: was it guilt? A need to make amends? To reconnect before it was too late? These visits often focused only on his cancer, not on the beautiful parts of his life his young son, his passion for soccer, his students, or his days playing gigs around Perth. It made me realise how reducing someone to an illness can be its own form of isolation.

In the middle of all this, Tim drops the perfect, sharp line: “My oncologist can go eat a dick.” It’s a moment that breaks the heaviness and underlines the push-pull tension of having to rely on a system you might not always agree with.

Throughout the book, Tim uses the acronym MEDS — medication, exercise, diet, sleep as a guiding framework for his survival. There’s also a line that stuck with me: “What’s in the way, is in the way.” He doesn’t see cancer as just an obstacle to overcome so he can get back to a “normal” life. Instead, it’s a doorway into a new way of living, if you’re willing to step through.

Reading Patting the Shark feels like sitting next to a friend who is telling you the absolute, unfiltered truth painful, hilarious, hopeful, and human. Tim Baker was living the dream: a celebrated surf writer, a family man, a life rich in travel and waves. Then, on July 7, 2015, everything changed when he was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer. What followed was a brutal, often humiliating journey through chemotherapy, hormone therapy, radiation, and surgery all woven together with his unwavering love of surfing and his writing as lifelines.

Globally, 1.5 million men were diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2020 alone, and Australia’s statistics are sobering: one in seven men will face it. While survival rates improve, quality of life often plummets. Tim’s story is a plea for integrative care that looks at the whole person, not just the tumour. He explores every angle meditation, diet, exercise, emotional support in an effort to reclaim agency and find balance.

This book isn’t just about cancer; it’s about mortality, identity, and discovering what truly matters when everything else falls away. It’s a testament to human resilience, full of heart and humour, offering comfort and connection for anyone who has faced or will face a life-altering diagnosis. In the end, it reminds us that while we can’t always choose what happens to us, we can choose how we move through it.