Check that prostate…
Durban writer Spike Farrell thought he was in great shape. But a routine check-up revealed he had advanced prostate cancer. He writes about his journey so far with this silent killer
IT IS AMAZING how things creep up on you in life. One moment you are chugging along quite happily, then suddenly, wham, a lifechanging event comes out of nowhere.
This is what happened to me. I have prostate cancer. When I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, it came as a tremendous shock.
These things just don’t happen to me. I considered myself to be very fit, being a former footballer at a good club, and was a keen road runner.
Where on earth did this come from?
No one actually knows where prostate cancer comes from.
I must stress that at no time did I have any symptoms or discomfort from this cancer. I felt great.
And that is half the problem with this silent killer. You don’t feel anything and life seemingly goes on as normal. My prostate cancer was quite far advanced, and if it hadn’t been for my wife nagging me to go for a routine check-up, I would never have found out about it until it was too late.
The pain and problems would come from the treatment.
To cut a long story short, my choices at this stage were stark.
I could have a radical prostatectomy, which is just that, radical with the loss of sexual function, and entails removing the prostate completely, but causing much life-changing damage.
Or I could choose brachytherapy which is the implanting of a number of radioactive seeds directly into the prostate which effectively destroys the cancer without wrecking your sex life. I chose brachytherapy.
With brachytherapy, I certainly did not know too much about it. More accurately, nothing. The urologist gave me a quick briefing on what would be done, and the outcome.
Sadly, he did not delve into the side effects in any great detail at all, (probably not wanting to scare me off) which meant I was unprepared for what happened. This is my experience. After the procedure, a very simple one-day event, when all my seeds had been implanted, (I had 50 put in place) I went home.
Okay, the prostate was a bit tender, I expected that, but quite frankly it seemed to be a bit of doddle. This feeling went on for about a month then out of the blue, or so it seemed, the side effects kicked in. It started with a warm feeling in my stomach, then spread to my bladder and bowels. I couldn’t go to the bathroom without a great deal of pain and discomfort.
I was feeling feverish and began to get severe headaches. I was not feeling great at all. The thing about brachytherapy is that the radiation isn’t very precise and tends to fry everything in the immediate area of the cancer, something I really should have realised, but I was too busy concentrating more on the cancer than anything else.
It was a most depressing time.
I was given some antibiotics and anti-swelling drugs by the doctor, but they certainly didn’t work very well, and the pain continued.
During this period I withdrew from all my friends, (one actually said I was walking like John Wayne) because I was sure they didn’t want to see me hobbling about with a long face, and if it hadn’t been for my wife, Dede, I don’t know what I would have done.
To this day, a few years after the brachytherapy treatment, I still have bladder and bowel problems, and sex is “unusual” and quite painful..
So I don’t know what the answer is when it comes to treating prostate cancer.
The radical operation is an option, with the loss of your sexual function, or brachytherapy with all the unpleasant side effects which persist with me to this day.
The very best thing to do is get checked out regularly and don’t do what I did and just let things slide.
If you are over 50, you need to be checked out. Full stop.
The silly thing is that men just don’t want to talk about this killer, certainly not like women talk about breast cancer, and the frightening thing is that in the UK last year, more men died from prostate cancer than women of breast cancer for the very first time. It’s almost like “out of sight, out of mind!” and that is a huge problem.
Now I actually live on pain killers which is not an ideal situation and still get sharp stabbing pains from my prostate, and the discomfort still continues. I go for PSA tests every six months and the worrying thing is that my count is starting to edge up again, which is annoying.
Through my own stupidity, I know my life has been shortened by this cancer; to get checked all I had to do was have a very simple PSA test and go on from there.
So this is a message to all you men out there: have you been tested yet? If not, why not?
And to women with male partners out there: this is a good cause to nag about.