YOU CAN'T BUY TIME

MEET TRAVIS MCCOY AND HIS LIFE CHANGING STORY

- PETE CHAMBERLAIN

Time is relative; in the grand scheme of things, we are only on this planet for a short time. What we choose to do with it is the question. We all have ambitions and aspire to fulfil our dreams, but in reality, the best that most of us can hope for is that we live a long and meaningful life having worked in the same job, living in the same place and retiring happily. Our mind spends most of the time lost in fantasies and illusions, reliving pleasant or unpleasant experiences and anticipating the future with eagerness or fear. We never seem to live for the moment or live in the now.

But what if the rollercoaster of life dealt you a severe curveball like a tumour in a critical part of your brain?

Meet Travis McCoy and discover the exceptional circumstance that changed his life forever, forcing him to re-evaluate his priorities to allow him to be able to follow his dreams.

Trav, how are you feeling right now?

Right now, I am okay. I'm just sitting in Padang about to go back out to the Mentawai Islands, and I am getting better - heaps better than I have been - but I am forever riding on waves of emotion and tripping out. The accident is something that changed my life within a split second. I went from thinking that I'm going to grow old and have a long and happy life to basically, I have this short time to live or, the best-case scenario, will need to have an operation that will leave me physically impaired.

What brings you to the Mentawais?