Touching on a sensitive area

“HAD that finger up your arse yet, Dad?”

It’s not the usual question you’d ask your father, is it?

But you’ve got to go to extremes when your dad is 67 and doesn’t go to the doctor.

It was my way of reminding Dad that at his age he really needs to go to the doctor and get his prostate checked.

Why? Because one in seven men in Australia will get diagnosed with prostate cancer.

A staggering 63 per cent of those come after they have turned 65.

So to put it bluntly, Dad was in the sweet spot.

Of course, I was joking about the whole finger up the clacker thing. That’s old-school. Because prostate cancer can now be detected from a simple blood test. There’s nothing awkward about that.

But I’d argue even a finger up the bum is better than finding out — too late — that you’ve got cancer.

Anyway, back to my dad.

After a good decade of nagging, he finally stopped putting it off and went to get the blood test.

He had no symptoms, no problems, no sign of anything wrong with his prostate.

The blood test came back, and it was abnormal. He had to see a specialist.

Fast forward a few months and the Old Man needed to have surgery pretty quickly.

This wasn’t the type of cancer that you could outlive. It had to come out.

Luckily, it looks like it was caught just in time, and Dad is back on his feet and hobbling around.

Hopefully, the doctors can continue their good work and get Dad cured. Only time will tell, though.

The moral of this story is that you can’t wait until you get symptoms.

Prostate cancer is called a silent killer for a reason.

Once you’re over 50 you need to start getting the blood tests — even earlier if you have a family history.

I’m just glad I nagged Dad into getting it done.

So if you’re reading this and have a loved one getting to that age, do the same.

It’s not a great conversation, but it’s one we all need to have.