On the 22nd September, seven Landmarc cyclists will join dozens of others in the Councillor Jerry Wickham Memorial Charity Cycle Ride for the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity and Dorothy House Hospice. I hope that reading this will encourage you, or a man in your life, to get regularly tested. If you also want to sponsor us; brilliant!
You can sponsor me here: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/jerrywickhamdorothyhouse
I am much luckier than Jerry was. The cancer in my prostate was discovered at a very early stage; Jerry’s wasn’t. Jerry died from prostate cancer, while I continue to live with mine. What we have in common is the great care we both received at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Chelsea.
A family history of prostate cancer increases your chances of early-onset disease. My father was diagnosed when he was sixty-five, so at the age of forty-six I suggested to my GP that I should start getting annual tests of my Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA). PSA is a protein secreted into the blood by prostate cells; normal cells and cancerous cells. As you get older and your prostate gets bigger, your prostate secretes more of this protein. The GP thought I was being overly cautious, but agreed to a test.
The PSA can indicate that you might have a problem with your prostate; it is not a test for cancer. So I was surprised, but to too worried, when my PSA was measured at more than twice as much as would be considered normal. I told myself this was the first test. There was no way I could catch a big fish first cast, right? No worries. I was booked in for a Magnetic Resonance Imaging scan and then a biopsy at my local hospital in Salisbury.
The diagnosis of prostate cancer was a shock. All the plans I had had for career, family and future came to an abrupt halt. The hospital did not provide good support, so I had to use charities like Prostate Cancer UK to get information. They were brilliant, but I did not like any of the options I was being offered by the urological consultant. I had no symptoms at all, just this freakish test result, and the so-called “side-effects” seemed devastating: urinary and faecal incontinence, erectile dysfunction and infections; all of which may be permanent.
“No thanks,” I said. “I’d rather have the cancer”.
My GP suggested that re-think that, find the best urologist in the country and get on his list. This proved to be the advice that saved my bacon. I cranked up Google and found Chris Ogden at the Royal Marsden. I got the phone number of his office and called his assistant. She was delighted as they were recruiting men of my age and diagnosis for a trial of focal High-Intensity Focussed Ultrasound (HIFU). This appealed to me far more. No drugs, no scalpels, no blood or bits being chopped off. Just sound waves.
Of course, it was not quite as simple as that, but the upshot of it all is that over ten years later I am still a patient at the Royal Marsden, I still have a few lesions in my prostate but they are all behaving themselves, I still have no symptoms and lead a full life. I know exactly what’s going on with my prostate and when it comes back (which is likely one day) I will be a patient at one of the best cancer treatment centres in the world.
Ignorance is not bliss, not if you are a man over fifty and not if you are a woman who has a man in her life over fifty. Start getting your annual PSA check through your GP. Early diagnosis means that you have options about treatment and some time to get on to trials and other innovative treatments which are getting better all the time.
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