JOHN LLOYD Prostate cancer was a real wake-up call
The former British No 1 tennis ace and BBC commentator tells ROZ LEWIS how he beat the disease that affects thousands of men every year
THE moment that Andy Murray created history by beating Canadian player Milos Raonic in straight sets, winning Wimbledon for a second time in 2016, will be etched in the memory of British tennis fans for ever.
But BBC commentator John Lloyd had something else on his mind. Despite feeling very well, a routine blood test had shown that a blood marker for prostate cancer was raised. (A normal reading is 3.0 or below).
“I had a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test that had come back with a figure of 5.9,” explains the 63-year-old former Great Britain player, from his apartment in Palm Beach, Florida.
“I just thought it would drop so the doctors did some retests but the PSA stayed up. By the time I was back in the States, the doctors were still concerned so I had an MRI scan which showed everything was 99 per cent fine although there was a slight area of concern. I was still playing tennis two hours a day and feeling on top of my game.”
To be on the safe side, John, who works as an estate agent in Palm Beach, underwent a biopsy in September of last year.
“The doctors said I had an 80:20 chance of being cancer-free so I went home feeling positive,” he recalls. “I had the shock of my life when I got a phone call four days later asking me to go in to discuss my results.”
PROSTATE cancer affects 300,000 men in the UK with nearly 47,000 new cases each year. About 10,000 men die from the disease every year.
The prostate is a small, walnutshaped gland which surrounds the urethra, the tube that carries urine from the bladder to the penis. Men often have problems with an enlarged prostate (benign prostatic enlargement) as they age, which means they need to urinate more often or have problems peeing. But many have no symptoms at all.
“I knew I was in trouble when the doctor said that I had a cancer that was invasive and fast moving,” says John, who has two children – Aiden, 28, and Hayley, 24 – from his marriage to second wife Deborah.
“It was very weird to be told that I had this thing growing inside me that might kill me. I was advised to think about whether to have surgery to remove the prostate or to have brachytherapy which is a type of radiation treatment.”
John spent more than a few anxious days ringing around experts, trying to figure what was the best route forward for him.
“As I’ve worked for the past 20 years doing fundraisers for the Prostate Cancer Foundation, I called them straight away.
“I then spoke to about 10 or 12 men who’d had prostate cancer and had both types of treatment. Some had undergone surgery and had side effects of incontinence and erectile dysfunction. It was an incredibly scary time and I was very worried about the side effects like every man facing this decision. But my gut was telling me to go for surgery so I was referred to Dr Ted Schaeffer in Chicago, who operated on actor Ben Stiller.”
In December last year, John had a robotic prostatectomy, where keyhole surgery is carried out by a robot controlled by the surgeon.
“In a robotic-assisted laparoscopic surgery the surgeon operates a robot which holds the instruments,” says John Newlands of Macmillan Cancer Support.
“Through controlling the robotic arms, the surgeon can move very delicately, steadily and precisely.
“Laparoscopic surgery can reduce recovery times but because this form of surgery, particularly involving a robot, hasn’t been used for as long as traditional methods such as open prostatectomy, we don’t know if it’s better at reducing long-term side effects.” John Lloyd adds: “I spent three days in hospital in Chicago and then stayed in a friend’s flat with my son Aiden.
“I was sore for a few days after the operation but I flew home early so I could recuperate in the much warmer climate of Florida.
“That Christmas, which I spent with my girlfriend Svetlana Carroll and her family, I didn’t have much of an appetite at all so I actually lost weight.”
JOHN then had to refrain from any tennis or gym work while his body healed, opting instead for long walks. “When I did start exercising, a little before the eight weeks of rest I was recommended was over, I took it very easy. And I was well enough to fly to Manchester to cover the Australian Open for the BBC in January.”
John is now fully fit and his last PSA test revealed that he was cancer-free. “I’m so pleased that I had the surgery and had such a good outcome.
“I had to have knee replacement surgery a few years ago but my knees had been a problem for years so I knew that they had to be sorted.
“Like most professional sports people my joints had taken a bit of a battering over the years but this illness and operation came out of the blue.
“Cancer does run in my family but not prostate,” he says. “My father survived colon cancer some 20 years before his death and then died from complications from a bad fall, aged 94, a couple of years ago.
“My mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer when she was close to the end but she died of other causes, aged 86.
“This brush with prostate cancer has been a wake-up call for me. This year at Wimbledon I talked to people about the condition and people I know are saying they are going to have a PSA test now, just to be safe, which is marvellous news,” he says.
“I’ve always looked after myself and been proactive in my approach to my health and I’ll continue to be that way. If one person I speak to or who reads about my illness gets an early diagnosis, and then gets treated quickly and successfully, then I’ll be very pleased.”