I wasn’t expecting that…..

(First Published August 9th 2019)

Just after Christmas 2018, after a few months of symptoms I would describe as ‘Men’s downstairs problems’, ‘ iffy waterworks’, ‘I am 53 you know’ to name but a few, I sensibly decided to see the doctor (not straight away of course as I am a 53 year old male.) If you’re wondering what these symptoms are ‘Google’ enlarged prostate or ask a 53 year old male….there’s almost a 50:50 chance they can give you a similar list of symptoms.

The Doctor took a sample of blood and a few days later I was told I didn’t have prostate cancer and should now book an appointment for a physical examination of the prostate gland. Obviously, I was far too busy and several weeks passed by. As Easter 2019 approached my symptoms got worse. Urinating was becoming more frequent and quite painful. My next visit to the Doctor was hastily brought on the morning I noticed a bit of blood in my urine. I was swiftly seen by the Doctor who gave me the physical examination I had been avoiding plus prescribed some antibiotics as he thought it was likely that I had a bladder infection. He also advised me that I also had a slightly enlarged prostate gland (quite a relief in many ways as it explained the last few months symptoms.)

An appointment was then made at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath for me to have a Flexible Cystoscopy, a procedure that involves a flexible camera being inserted into the bladder the only way possible to have a look at what’s going on inside. It was a bit of a mess in there and the Doctor prescribed me some stronger antibiotics to clear up the infection and invited me back for another go about six weeks later. The procedure wasn’t wholly comfortable but wasn’t bad enough to put me off coming back to see the results. Over the following few weeks my symptoms improved slightly, although there were half a dozen or so occasions where I passed what I could only think were bits of bladder lining. Very painful and made me feel quite unwell for a few hours.

The second viewing of the inside of my bladder, to my great relief, showed a much improved picture. The infection appeared to have virtually gone with only a couple of inflamed areas remaining. The Doctor, however, felt that what I really needed was a bigger camera shoved up my bits to take a biopsy of the remaining inflamed areas. I was booked in for a Rigid Cystoscopy at the Princess Royal Hospital in early July 2019. As this procedure was to be done under general anaesthetic I had the usual pre-op which showed me to be pretty normal regarding height, weight, blood pressure etc and not being a carrier of MRSA has got to be a good thing.

The procedure was successful although the following week wasn’t pleasant with painful urination containing blood and often clots. I was told to expect a wait of up to six weeks for the results. I had a phone call plus the letter to attend an outpatients appointment at the Lewes Victoria Hospital yesterday afternoon, Thursday 8th August 2019 at 14.50.

Alice came with me and we saw a very nice surgeon, whose name escapes me, who came straight to the point. I have bladder cancer. To be more specific, I have bladder carcinoma in situ. There are a couple of options. One being regular doses of the BCG vaccine being administered through a catheter (yes, the same one we had in our arms as teenagers. Apparently it’s also good at turning on the immune system to knock out cancer cells.) It has roughly a 70% success rate. The other is the complete removal of my bladder plus prostate gland followed by a new bladder being reconstructed from part of my bowel. Although a major operation, if successful it should mean the cancer is completely removed and there should be no need for further chemo therapy. My surgeon strongly recommends the surgical option and following further scans plus meetings with the surgical team plus the Macmillan Cancer support team would like me booked in for surgery within 3 months.

So there we are. I wasn’t expecting that as we drove to the appointment. That was just over 24 hours ago. So far this is a purely factual account. There is much emotion in the air and I will delve into that next time I feel the urge to get it down in writing.

I intend to blog my way through the next year or so for the sake of openness and honesty. I’m not going to hide away from this cancer. I reckon my nearest and dearest (and myself) have the best chance of staying ahead of the game by being able to communicate our feelings openly and not be afraid to feel.

Finally, if one 53 year old male (other ages are acceptable) reads this and chooses to go to the doctor earlier rather than later then that’s a positive.