Prostate Cancer

A very different blip today.

Is blip just about taking photographs or is it about us? Well in many respects the two will often (but not always) reflect each other. Today is about me and you. Today I started radiotherapy treatment for prostate cancer. The treatment is five days a week for the next seven and half weeks.

I was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the end of last year. I have had no illness or symptoms. It was picked by routine screening with a simple PSA blood test. When I worked I had an annual company medical and this was one of the tests performed. After retirement I insisted on continuing with this test. Over a period of time it was noticed that my PSA level, although low, was increasing and this led to further investigations.

For the last three months I have been on hormone therapy and the effect of this is to stop the cancer growing and reduce it in size so that the radiotherapy will be more effective. The hope is that the radiotherapy will sort it. The cancer is localised and the outlook is very good. Whilst the radiotherapy may cause some side effects I intend to continue as normally as I possibly can.

So, and this is the purpose of this blip - if you are a male aged 50 plus or if there is a male in your life aged 50 plus (husband/father/son) then I would strongly urge you/them to ask the GP to carry out this test. It is not a definitive test but an increasing PSA level or a very high PSA level is something which requires further discussion with the GP and possibly additional investigation.

I am not telling you this because I want your good wishes – in this blip community I know I will have that in abundance. If, just one person reading this has the PSA test then for me it would be worth all the stars and hearts I could ever expect to get in a lifetime on blip! Please, please do it. If you are in any doubt then please read this again.

There is much more information about prostate cancer here.

Michael