Former professional wrestler Bret "The Hitman" Hart revealed Monday that he's fighting prostate cancer. 
 
 "I've had a great lifelong dance and I'm a survivor of many hard battles," the 58-year-old Hart said in an Instagram post. "I now face my toughest battle. With hesitation and fear, I openly declare myself in my fight against prostate cancer." 
 
 The WWE Hall of Famer, who suffered a stroke in 2002, said he'll undergo surgery in the next few days. 
 
 "I make a solemn vow to all of those that once believed in me, the dead and the living, that I will wage my fearsome fight against cancer with one shield and one sword carrying my determination and my fury for life, emboldened by all the love that's kept me going this long already," Hart wrote. 
 
 Bret Hart won world heavyweight titles with both the WWF/WWE and WCW during his pro wrestling career. Courtesy WWE 
 
 Hart won the world heavyweight championship on five occasions in the WWF and twice with WCW. In addition, he won the WWE U.S. heavyweight title five times. 
 
 Hart, who retired after suffering a concussion in 1999, is a member of the famed wrestling Hart family from Canada. His father, Stu Hart, wrestled professionally before gaining acclaim as a trainer. Brother Owen Hart wrestled professionally until he died in 1999 after falling from an apparatus as he was being lowered into the ring from the ceiling of Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri. ||||| Andrew Henderson, who has terminal cancer, will be putting on a performance art piece on Oct 21 and 23, when strangers will tell him their secrets and he'll get them tattooed on his body. LYLE STAFFORD / Toronto Star ) Order this photo Henderson plans to invite 100 strangers to tell him their secrets and then watch as they are tattooed on his body. ( LYLE STAFFORD/Toronto Star ) 
 
 Andrew Henderson is taking 100 secrets to the grave. The 28-year-old stage manager and performer who is terminally ill is holding a living funeral/performance art piece called Taking It To The Grave in Winnipeg, not far from where he grew up. Over the course of two, two-hour performances, he’ll invite 100 strangers to whisper their secrets to him, help him choose a symbol to represent each secret and then watch as it is tattooed on Henderson’s body. The former Torontonian was diagnosed with t-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma two years ago, after doctors found a football-sized tumour in his chest. It became incurable one year ago. Having come to terms with his terminal diagnosis, Henderson, an ebullient performance art lover with a flare for the dramatic, hopes to give these strangers the same release he now feels by letting them confide in him. 
 
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 “Death has been the greatest gift of my life because it allowed me to fully embrace my true and honest self,” said Henderson, a gay man who, after the diagnosis, was drawn into deep introspection and now identifies as genderqueer, meaning he feels both male and female. “Everything comes into perspective pretty quickly (when you’re dying). All you can be is your best self.” 
 
 Within 15 minutes of being given his terminal diagnosis, Henderson was cracking jokes. He says the prospect of death has allowed him to fully embrace his "true and honest self." ( LYLE STAFFORD/Toronto Star ) 
 
 When Henderson was given his terminal diagnosis in August 2015, his immediate reaction was shock and sadness, but within 15 minutes, he was cracking jokes. 
 
 “I was like ‘What’s the age all the rock stars die at?’” he recalled referring to Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix and other celebrities who died at age 27. He was 26 at the time. “It was like aiming to get into the 27 Club. I was already making light of it.” At the Friday evening and Sunday afternoon performances, up to 50 family, friends and strangers will enter the softly lit Aceart inc. gallery to find Henderson perched in his seat of honour — a giant champagne bottle that he and his team crafted from white tulle and chicken wire — in the centre of the room, surrounded by trinkets and pictures in gold frames. Champagne is his favourite drink, he says, and the universal symbol for celebration. There will be a manicure bar, cushions and cuddle spaces to “rest in peace,” — a nod to his dark sense of humour — and plenty of glitter and shimmery gauze. Hundreds of finger-sized gold foil rectangles will carpet the floor and Eroca Nicols, a choreographer and a collaborator on his project, will sweep the squares throughout the performance. She’ll also dance. One by one, guests meandering around the room can approach Henderson to whisper their secrets, then watch as Toronto tattoo artist Carly Boyce inks the secret symbols on his skin. At the finale, family and friends will cleanse Henderson with small cupfuls of champagne as he sits in a kiddie pool. Audience members can cleanse him too, with water. 
 
 Henderson already has 16 tattoos, including this one of the Titanic across his back, which he says represents recent events in his life: hitting an obstruction, facing certain death and going down with grace. ( LYLE STAFFORD/Toronto Star ) 
 
 Nicols, Henderson’s friend of five years, finds some relief in knowing she’s helping her friend ease into his death through the performance art, which she calls a death ritual. She recently spent years travelling the world studying death, talking to witch practitioners and others who work with the occult. “I’m here performing a sacred task,” said Nicols, whose research influenced her own performance, called Truthteller, running Saturday. “I feel in a lot of ways very honoured to be able to do this.” The two have been researching death rituals, meeting Winnipeg psychics, witch practitioners and alternative medicine practitioners. Their research was supported by a grant from the Young Lungs Dance Exchange, an organization for interdisciplinary artists, but the performance is an independent project. Henderson hired Sandy Klowak as production manager for Taking It To The Grave. She calls Henderson’s work “groundbreaking.” “I’ve never personally seen someone engage with their own mortality in this way,” said Klowak. “Death is something that, even though we all obviously are headed towards it, it’s not something we want to engage with as part of our Western culture.” On Henderson’s part, he’s excited to get the tattoos inked “anywhere there’s real estate” on his body. He already has 16, including “drop dead gorgeous” inked on his fingers, the Birth of Venus on his chest and an image of the Titanic across his back, which he says represents his life post-diagnosis: hitting an obstruction, facing certain death and going down with grace. 
 
 Henderson plans to invite 100 strangers to tell him their secrets and then watch as they are tattooed on his body. ( LYLE STAFFORD/Toronto Star )
– The ex-professional wrestler known to his fans as "The Hitman" has just taken a hit of his own. Bret Hart has prostate cancer, he told fans in an Instagram post Monday, and he says he'll be having surgery within days, ESPN reports. "Mark Helprin wrote: 'We are all perfect clocks that Divinity has set to ticking when, even before birth, the heart explodes into a lifelong dance.' I've had a great lifelong dance and I'm a survivor of many hard battles. I now face my toughest battle," the 58-year-old Canadian wrote. Hart, who suffered a stroke in 2002 and says he hopes to raise cancer awareness, notes in the Instagram post, "I openly declare myself in my fight against prostate cancer. In the next few days, I will undergo surgery with the hope of defeating this nemesis once and for all. … I will wage my fearsome fight against cancer with one shield and one sword carrying my determination and my fury for life, emboldened by all the love that's kept me going this long already." (The pro wrestling world lost both Dusty Rhodes and Roddy Piper last year.)