Grateful's Story

It saved my life. It was pure chance I discovered I had prostate cancer. I visited my GP about a completely unconnected matter and as I was leaving he asked whether there was anything else on my mind. I couldn't think of anything in particular but mentioned I was peeing more slowly. The GP said it was probably a swollen prostate, quite common at my age, and sent me for a PSA test. A few days later he phoned me at work. GPs don't normally phone people at work do they. Events moved quickly thereafter, I had an MRI scan which showed my prostate cells were all ones and twos (on a scale of one to five). Ones and twos were apparently unlikely to be cancerous but I opted to have the twelve needle, full anaesthetic biopsy just to be certain. I'm very glad I chose to have the biopsy because it turned out I had extensive prostate cancer. I was offered the various available treatment options, but only the radical prostectomy seemed to me to be certain to remove the cancer from my body. I was warned about the risks that a radical prostectomy would pose to my continance and potency, but with my life in imminent danger these risks paled into insignificance. I had however already gone to the trouble of choosing the surgeon with the best success rate in the UK for saving sexual function and continance, so I felt confident that I wasn't in reality taking any significant risk by opting for the radical prostectomy. Cutting to the chase, the operation was an alround success. The prostate was removed and the cancer had not reached the outer edge of the prostate so had not spread. I have no incontinence. My pinky is about an inch and a half shorter than it was but most importantly my erections still work. The PSA test I had just before the operation was already double what it had been two months previously so clearly the cancer was progressing fast and had I not made that casual remark to my GP about peeing slowly I suspect I wouldn't be here to tell this story. So, as I said above, the biggest impact on my life is that I'm alive. I dont have the words to express how much i appreciate that every morning I wake up.