People & Lifestyle story, April 2006
| A LIFE CHANGING
EXPERIENCE
By: Paul Iredale |
The more beer I drank, the harder it was to pee. It was the first sign that something was amiss.
At 49, I had assumed that the more frequent night time visits to the toilet and the lower back aches were just part of getting old. But the problems with the beer got no better and were not shared by my friends. I decided to visit the doctor. He sent me for a blood test, but I was not over worried about the problem, so it was some weeks before I got it done. I went off on holiday the next day and forgot about it all again.
So it came as quite a shock when I returned a fortnight later to find a message on the answer machine that my doctor had booked me an appointment with a consultant. I went straight round to find out what the problem was, but it was only much later in the journey that I realised the full significance of what he was telling me - I had a PSA of 65.
I had company medical cover and so took myself off to a Harley Street urologist. He took samples for a biopsy - not a procedure I would wish on anyone - and the results came back in a week or so, positive, prostate cancer.
For better or worse, the consultant had avoided impressing on me the seriousness of my condition. Over a few more weeks, as my PSA crept up past 80, we discussed the possibility of keyhole surgery to check whether the cancer had spread to the lymph glands. Then he asked me whether I would like a second opinion. He suggested Roger Kirby.
By the time I arrived at Kirby’s rooms, my PSA had reached 116. He was altogether more business-like, and immediately shook me out of my complacency. No, he would not operate. I needed to get on with radiotherapy as soon as possible. He made an appointment for me with a colleague the same day.
As I walked down Harley Street for the appointment with Nick Plowman, the full enormity of my situation finally came home to me. This cancer could kill me quite quickly. I phoned my wife, finding it difficult to speak and then called work to tell them I would not be back for some time.
The next couple of months were a haze of radiotherapy treatment - five days a week for six weeks, travelling across London for 20 minutes lying in a pinpoint position under a vast machine with a full bladder. No pain, but enormous tiredness, and quite dramatic weight loss (I should have hung onto it). And then it was over.
The PSA dropped to zero. Kirby had put me on the hormone suppressant Casodex, and I kept taking the pills for two years. I joined a support group, the PSA, and spent a good deal of time with other men with Prostate Cancer. I watched many of them sicken, and waited to get worse again myself. But my PSA stayed resolutely minimal. When I came off Casodex, it went up to 0.5 and now, three years later, it is at 0.9. I have begun to believe that there is life after Prostate Cancer.
It has been a life changing experience. And it may not yet be over. It has taught me that Prostate Cancer is not a simple thing, but a group of diseases that most doctors know little about. I have been told by one consultant that I am a dead man walking, and by another that I am cured.
It has convinced me that men should take regular PSA tests, and seek specialist advice as soon as they detect a change in trend. And that - even at my relatively early age - a serious diagnosis is not necessarily a death notice, because, as they say, more men die with Prostate Cancer than of it.
Paul Ireland
1st May 2006