Pembury hospital… I used to live near there. I live in central Paris now.
Your prostate Steve, keep a close eye on your PSA level, if it starts creeping up do something about it and ASAP.
I started by having a hip replaced it was a wonderful success my French orthopaedic surgeon has a terrific reputation, a great guy too. I had that completely replaced under local anaesthetic and was up and walking the same day.
I tell you this as it turned out to have been a tad dodgy, what none of us knew at the time was that my very odd GP had simply not been taking much notice of my bladder discomfort and constant peeing. He had performed the usual finger up the nether region a couple of times… “slightly enlarged” he said “let’s see how it goes” He said nothing about my PSA level having gone up to over 8 so in my ignorance I thought it wasn’t anything to be concerned about. To cut it short, my Dr was away for a while and so I saw another who looked at my results, blew a fuse and had me into hospital for tests as a matter of emergency.
A TIP, if the signs aren’t good seriously question the advisability of having a biopsy. I did, when I asked was it safe to shoot an instrument (needle with an end that grabs a sample of the prostate gland) through your presumably cancer-free rectum wall grab the sample and haul it back through the tiny wound in your rectum wall? Was there a risk of cancer cell contamination? I was told, “that’s not a daft question, but don’t worry with the prostate this is safe enough.”
Well, it wasn’t as it burst my prostate capsule which, as it turned out, was housing a virulent Gleason 4+4 cancer tumour which escaped the capsule. My op took the lot, it had been touch and go there was a great deal of cleaning up to do and I had radio therapy and then two years of hormone therapy which was no fun really.
My wonderful hip surgeon was shocked because he was a pioneer of the replacement via a very neat incision to the front of your leg in the near groin region - very close to the prostate gland. During this technique, no muscles are cut, thus no re-education is needed. However a great deal of stretching apart of the muscles is needed and a Gleeson 4+4 tumour right there is NOT recommended.
Why am I telling you all this? Well, the two-year hormone therapy anti-cancer treatment is tough, but even so, my reactions didn’t seem normal, my Paris oncologist professor and I were finally coming to the conclusion that the cancer treatment was covering another problem that was reacting badly to the hormone treatment and was better stopped. It took a while to diagnose primary progressive MS. I’m a lucky man as I’m 72, had a wonderful life and career and have got by remarkably well although now I know what the MS symptoms are it’s obviously been with me for at least 25 years! Yes there have been unexplained problems, deep fatigue, leg problems, involuntary limb movement, numbness, “pins and needles” - most of the usual, but it didn’t stop me, it was comparatively recently that I began to have balance problems but not long ago that I was hanging out of helicopters or filming from the roof or up the pantograph above the cable of the Chamonix cable car as we headed for the summit. I had no fear of heights, I loved my work. So while I can’t do that work any more I now write and find it just as exciting and fulfilling, so yes, I’m a very lucky man.
