People & Lifestyle story, October 2005
| PANTS TO CANCER
Gordon Rushworth’s loving family run for fun in his memory As appeared in Take a Break magazine By: Andrea Kon |
Wherever he went, Gordon Rushworth’s, first question was always: “Where’s the loo?” Over the years, his wife Brenda, 69, and daughters Sharon McIntosh, 46 and Alison Midgley, 40, got used to Gordon’s water-works problems, always rushing off to the toilet before he did anything. He’d often get up half-a-dozen times during the night, too. But according to Sharon: “That was just Dad.”
“Why don’t you go and see the doctor about it?” she asked him. “Maybe she can do someth“ But like most men, Gordon didn’t want to ask for help with what he considered a “bit of an embarrassing problem”. “It’s just my age,” he told his worried family.
“It’s beginning to rule your life, Dad,” Sharon said. “You’re not being fair on Mum. Look how exhausted she is.” Eventually, sick of the nagging, he went to the doctor who sent him to a specialist at Nottingham City Hospital near his home. He arranged for blood tests to measure his PSA (prostate specific antigen), which can indicate prostate cancer. The whole family were relieved when the tests came back, suggesting that Gordon was cancer free.
“You’ve got a non-cancerous prostate swelling,” the specialist told him in January 2002. “It happens to one in half of all men over 50. Don’t worry. It can be sorted out very easily with simple operation. We just take the swelling away. The prostate goes back to being a normal size and stops pressing on the tube that carries urine to the outside of your body. Once the pressure is off, you’ll be fine. You’ll only be in hospital for a few days. We‘ll take a biopsy while you‘re under the anaesthetic, just to make sure.”
When Gordon came home, he was back to his old self. No more running to the toilet. “I’m actually getting a whole night’s sleep now,” Brenda told Sharon. But the relief was short-lived. Over the next few weeks, Gordon, 72, started needing to pass water more often. By the time he went back for his post-op check-up in May, something was clearly still wrong.
“The biopsy shows you’ve got prostate cancer,” the specialist told him. “We’ll treat it with radiotherapy and hormone tablets.” “Yes I have cancer but you know me. I’ll have the treatment and I’ll beat it,” he told his family. But despite his positive attitude, Gordon knew the score. “How long have I got,” he asked the specialist. He was told two years, and when he died in January this year, he’d lived those two years, almost to the month.
The close-knit family, including his four grandchildren, Sharon’s twin daughters Jade and Chloe, 14, and Alison’s boys Joshua, 10 and Connor, eight, were devastated. After the family funeral Brenda told her daughters “I want you to find a charity that warns other men to go to the doctor as soon as they notice symptoms.”
Sharon went on the Internet and found Prostate Research Campaign UK, the only charity in Britain that raises money for research into all prostate diseases, as well as providing patients with information and advice. When she saw on their Website that they were planning a five km fun-run round Battersea Park on Father’s Day, with people wearing funny pants over their clothes, Pants in the Park sounded a wonderful way to raise awareness of the disease that had killed her beloved Dad.
She rang Alison in Nottingham who agreed. “I’m going to have a go too, said Josh, who is diabetic. Her partner, David Gibson’s daughters, Sophie, eight, Melanie, 11, and Joanne, 13, wanted to join in too. On the day, 12 members of the Rushworth/Midgely/MacIntosh and Gibson clans from Nottingham and Nuneaton met at Watford Gap Service Area, just off the M1 and drove to Battersea Park in a convoy.
Sharon had raided the knicker-stall at her local market and picked up an old fashioned corset complete with suspenders for £2. She bought some sexy little red bikinis and thongs, attached them to the suspenders and finished off ensemble with a purple boa trim. Husband Adrian decorated his Y fronts with a Union Jack. Alison wore a thong with a red pom-pom and Connor sported England Boxer shorts over his trousers and Josh had Union Jack pants. David made himself a Scottish tartan sporran, and stuffed a pouch inside it with socks. The girls and Brenda decided to rattle buckets. The family had already collected £450 in sponsorship from friends and neighbours.
“Dad would have loved this,“ said Sharon as she was awarded first prize for her outrageous outfit and young Connor walked away with ‘best junior’ prize. “It was too late for my Dad. But we’ve done this in the hope we can stop it happening to someone else.”
Prostate Research Campaign UK, 10 Northfields Prospect, Putney Bridge Road, London SW18 1PE. Website: www.prostate-research.org.uk. Telephone 020 8877 5840.