A Message from Eddie

In January after an examination my Dr told me "I might as well check your prostate whilst you're here" and said that it felt "spongy". She ordered up a set of blood tests and a week later, another doctor from the practice phoned and said "All your blood tests are normal except your PSA level is 130".

He might as well have been speaking ancient Greek, I had no idea what that meant. Apparently a normal reading is about 4 and a reading of 130 needs further investigation. I was referred to the urology department of the Royal Hallamshire Hospital for investigation.

I was given an appointment within 10 days and had an initial consultation followed bu a bone scan, MRI scan and another CT scan. I attended a follow-up appointment with the consultant, expecting a biopsy to be performed but he said there was no point as it would only confirm what they already knew, I have advanced and incurable stage 3 prostate cancer.

As you can probably imagine, this was a lot to take in as I had none of the usual symptoms of prostate cancer (and still don't). I have just this morning a further CT scan to determine how far outside the prostate gland the cancer has spread and from here they will custom design a course of radiotherapy (one session a week for 6 weeks).

So this is where I am now, they won't be able to give me a prognosis until after the radiotherapy.

All the hospital appointments and treatments may cause disruption to operating Time Factors but Dave and myself will do out best to minimise this.



Eddie