Now, this video is a little different, you may have noticed a slow down in the
output of the channel of the last few months and there is a reason for that.
Last year I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and a couple of weeks ago
I underwent a procedure called a Robot-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy or RALP,
the technology of which is probably worthy of a video subject itself, but I digress.
The operation was a success and the prostate along with the cancer was removed without
any complications so hopefully, when I get tested they shouldn’t find anymore.
The back story to this is something about 95% of my audience may want to take notice on.
I had no symptoms other than my urine flow or pee had slowed down over the past 5 years or so and
that getting starting was getting equally slow. This is something that happens to many men as we
get older, my father had the same issue and you may well have the same or know someone that does.
I went to the doctors and had an examination and took a PSA test,
that a check for a prostate-specific antigen which increases with cancer but also benign
hyperplasia which is a non-cancerous enlargement of the prostate which again is very common,
which is what they thought mine was. Roll on a few more years and I do the same and
get the same results, then, of course, covid came along and virtually shut down the health system.
So I opted to go private and have a HOLEP operation that uses a laser
to bore out the prostate and even at that late stage, the consultant whom I saw
didn’t think that it was cancerous. So I was somewhat unpleasantly surprised, although
I had been warned beforehand when the results came back from the part that had been removed,
to find that it contained 11% of an intermediate grade cancer, a Gleason grade 7 , a 3+4
which means there was more very slow-growing cancer and some moderate speed cancer.
This put it at the bottom of the cancer grading scale but is still
something that has to be dealt with, sooner rather than later.
MRI scans showed that it was still looked encapsulated and localised to two areas in
the remainder of the prostate. Actually being in the MRI machine was an experience in itself, which
you may well know if you have ever been in one. There were a couple of options for treatment that
best suited my situation, surgery to cut it out or radiation treatment with an electron beam.
I opted for the surgery because if radiation treatment was not successful, surgery was not
an option after because the remainder would be too small to work on but if surgery wasn’t successful
you could still have radiation treatment afterwards, so there was more of a safety net.
It’s now just over two weeks after the operation and I’m getting on well, in fact, I was out of
hospital 30 hours after what is a major operation which is common with this robot-assisted procedure
and you don’t have a big cut that takes a long time to heal. Instead, I have 6 small scars,
the biggest is about 3cm long and the rest a 1-2cm where the robotic arms went in,
I know it sounds scary but the alternative, if you do nothing, is much more so
Now, I would like to give a shout out to all the NHS staff at Southend Hospital
in Essex and in particular Anna and Jim in the recovery room as Jim recognised me from YouTube
and we had a long chat about all sorts of stuff as I waited to be moved to my room.
So I would like to urge any men listening out there that are aged 50+ to get checked
out even if you have no symptoms. It’s the most common cancer in men,
with 1 in 8 of us getting it, but if you catch it early it's also one of the most treatable
with a survival rate of over 90% after 10 years. So that my story and I hope to back normal
in the coming months.. Now as we have had news that the
James Webb Space telescope has now fully deployed safely in its final position, I thought I would
close with a short piece by the moody blues from their 1968 album “In search of the lost chord”
which I happened to chance upon a few days ago but I thought was very apt in the circumstances,
so I will leave you with the Word.. and I’ll let you fill in the ending.