Penile Cancer

Yes possibly I should have gone sooner because it was discovered on a diabetic check. Well prior to that I had the nurse said there was a spot of blood in the water but she wasn’t too concerned but within 3 or 4 weeks of that I was passing more blood and in fore... with foresight I should have gone back there and had it checked out but… being a coward [chuckles] I didn’t do that. I just let it run on to the next 6 monthly check where it was picked up and I had no options then [chuckles].

I admitted myself to the local hospital on the 8th of October 2009, and… I’d considered that I’d been ill for… way before maybe 5 months before that. It manifested its way, it was strange really in as much that… it looked like, that I had a permanent semi-erection … the penis wasn’t soft. It was… it was hard to the touch. The skin... was... sort of adhering itself to something that was underneath it. It was the strangest thing. And indescribable pain, the pain got worse on the approach to the 8th of October. It was manageable... 3 or 4 weeks before but got progressively worse. I was... finding it difficult to urinate, I was urinating... blood... and copious amounts of blood as well... and a white fluid, I don’t know what the white fluid was. And... I should have gone... three or four weeks prior.

Yes, because I didn’t really consider it to be a ‘condition’ if you like, in inverted commas. Just as one naturally, you know, you get an ache in your back you don’t go to the doctor on Day One, you see how it progresses and this was very, infinitely small progress and you know it’s not something that you’re sort of examining on a daily basis and you’re seeing it. It’s not like a cut on your thumb that’s catching everything that you touch and therefore [coughs] there was quite a period of time that I did absolutely nothing and when, even when I went and got the medication to put on it ah, I was fairly fastidious in using it ah, and as I say there did seem to be some improvements but ah, there was probably eighteen months at least to possibly two years before the final diagnosis, so yes there I mean there was obviously delay on my part in not going back immediately I’d finished the sessions of treatment of seeing how it went because it was not in my mind that it was anything particularly more than a nuisance, and obviously in my own GP’s mind as well, he wasn’t too concerned.

It was just over a year ago, about a year and a half ago, and I’d slowly been having problems going to the toilet, weeing usually. Usually, it was after I’d been to the toilet, there was dribbles coming out. I had to go out to go straight back again. And I did a little bit of reading around and it fitted the symptoms of prostate cancer. I wasn’t too worried at that stage but I thought I’d mention it to the doctors. I was seeing the doctor anyway for blood pressure, so I just mentioned it while I was there. He then sent me off to have blood tests and investigate that. Those all came back negative when I went to see him again. He, but in the meantime, problems slowly got worse, and it got to the stage where when I was standing to, standing up to wee, it was just taking ages and ages to pass water and I was thinking, ‘the next time I come I’m going to bring a book here to [laugh] it’s not going to come out again at all next, one day. So I went back to the doctor and then, well about that sort of time, I started to notice a growth right from the end of my penis. It looked like a sort of tiny wart. So when I went back to see the doctor, talking about the prostate cancer, but those tests had come back negative, but he wanted to do a, an inspection finger up your bum inspection, so I had to do that. And I must admit that was the, that was the start of the sort of nervousness if you like, the first time you have to [hesitation] drop your trousers to the doctor that’s [laughs]. You’re quite, quite embarrassed and you don’t really want to talk about it. And I think perhaps if I hadn’t been going to see him about the blood pressure, I probably would have waited a bit longer before I plucked up the courage. So while he was doing the, the checking the prostate, I just said to him, ‘Look, can I think I’ve got another problem, you know on my penis. Can you have a look at that while I’ve, while I’ve got my trousers down?’ So that was, yeah ok, that was another embarrassing moment. I’d got, I’d coped with the finger in the bum, but looking at your penis, I don’t think any man had really seen it [chuckles] ever. So he looked at that and he obviously asked a lot of questions, you know, ‘Do you think it’s sexually transmitted? Have you been playing away or anything? Well, I knew I hadn’t so that was fine enough, but. So his reaction then was, ‘Ok this could be something, something nasty.’ He said. He gave me some ointment to put on it, and said, ‘If it doesn’t go away, come back, come back within, come back in ten days. Whatever happens let me know. So I think he obviously at that point realised it could be something nasty. And I think I’m quite grateful to him for actually sort of taking it so seriously at that point. So yes, I took the ointment and it eased, there was a slight pain on this growth, and the ointment actually eased the pain, which was quite interesting. So I thought it was doing something. But obviously it wasn’t reducing in size at all. So I went back to see him after, I think it was in two weeks. But I tell you that’s close enough to ten days for a man to go to the doctor isn’t it. And from that point he said, ‘Right, I’m going to refer you to a consultant.’ He says, ‘I think it does need to be checked out.’

It weren’t really a concern as such. It was there and it didn’t really, it seemed to progress more when I’d had it messed with than it did while I’d got it. Yes I did you know I did have a little bit of a soreness occasionally there which I just passed off as general body functions or things like that. It wasn’t a concern to be untoward, which obviously I never thought it would have been cancer. You know I just thought it might be some kind of wart or something, you know, but that... And that was it. So… it wasn’t a concern. It wasn’t… I didn’t even take no notice of it.

Well as I say, I’m a very private person and I’ve had other illnesses, serious ones, in my lifetime and I kind of tended to... I just couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone, or to go and seek help, you know, I know I should have done, especially in the early stages because I obviously wouldn’t have had to have such drastic surgery but, that’s like on reflection you know you um, that’s looking at it in hindsight isn’t it so...

I just kept putting it off and I was using all these different creams just in the hope that it would go away but obviously it didn’t.
 

I think I was frightened. I think I was. And I’m not anybody who’s frightened of situations. People don’t frighten me. But I was, it got very bad, when I say to people, it got very bad, very quickly. And I said that to my surgeon. It was manageable. And I’m talking now, let’s say 4, 5 weeks before I went in, it was just a slight, it was just a slight lump, a very slight lump. It wasn’t painful. It was one of those things where I think we’ve all... ‘oh it’ll go’. So I adopt that attitude. But it, it didn’t go and it, and it started to grow very quickly. And like I said it was, it was, it was, described as a squamous cell carcinoma. What that is I don’t know, but it grew very quickly. Under the skin, it was rock hard, it was as hard as, hard as iron, it was solid. And like I said it was… it got very bad very quickly. And it got to a point, it sort of runs over you and all of a sudden you’re in a point where you know 2 weeks prior to going you’re in a terrible state, you are in a terrible state and you can’t bring yourself, be man enough about it, to bring yourself to go and deal with it.

You talked about delaying seeking help, what do you think were the main reasons why you delayed?

Well the worry of what I … how it would end up. The usual sort of thing, you bury your head in the sand and hope it goes away and… I suppose because I’ve already had such good health over the years, and I’ve got over, you know…, some pretty difficult times health-wise, and I’ve always fought them off, and I thought, ‘Well, am I going to do it with this?’ but as time went on, I realised it was not going to happen. So the decision was virtually made for me.
 

Oh, well, I suppose in a way really it was a matter of with me being embarrassed about showing it and things like that, but I just basically went to the GP and the big delay was the fact that the they thought it was a wart and there was a year passed then before I actually went back again and had the surgeon who said it was cancer. Which I suppose could have been quite vital but luckily I got away with it [laughs].

Why do you think you did delay?

I don’t, embarrassment, I’ve never been to a doctor’s for that sort of thing before and it was going to be embarrassing I thought. It wasn’t but I thought at the time it would have been embarrassing. The doctor was - my own GP was very good, very caring and he did everything he could and I was quite satisfied with what he did.

Did you have any fears?

Not any fears but once they told me it was cancer I was more embarrassed than fear I think that wear off quite quickly the fears all the embarrassment wear off.
 

Well what I actually did, I went to the doctors for a couple of skin tags in, from the inside of my leg, or the inside of my thighs I should say. And … and while I was there I asked him just to check, he checked me for prostate for testical cancer. And just a general medical check-up as well. And I did explain to him that I’d got a small growth or pimple on the side of my the gland on my penis. And which he actually examined. And he said, ‘Does it does it bleed?’ and I said, ‘well it has on occasion’. And he asked me how long that I’d had it. It must have been couple of years. Which up until then it never ever given me any problems, no problems at all. And to which he went onto the... computer and typed a letter out for me to go up and see the urologist and the local hospital. At which…I think it was a week or maybe 10 days later I went up and seen him. And he said that it was penile cancer. Which obviously I’d never heard of penile cancer but he did explain to me after that it was cancer of the penis basically. But they couldn’t really give me... confirm that due to a biopsy being taken. Of which approximately a couple of weeks after I went back in, they give me a biopsy, took a biopsy off it. And it was confirmed that I’d got penile cancer.

Basically I went to the doctor’s... for something completely different… and as I was being examined the doctor noticed [hesitation] what looked like a wart so he said, ‘I think we ought to have a second opinion on this’ and arranged for me to go to the local hospital. I went, and I was examined and at that stage he didn’t seem to think it was anything untoward. I then, probably a month later it seemed to get worse, so I went back to the doctors and he said, ‘Yes, I think we ought to have you back in again.’ This time they said they’d do a biopsy on a day ward.

Yes I was first aware of a sore, some kind of lump, which was just on the under underside of my foreskin. And it was probably it would be some months I think I was aware of this, it becoming more sore and tighter. And so I saw my GP who it interestingly it had been a GP who had who specialised in heart conditions. Which be a fairly big practice and I’d been seeing him for atrial fibrillation which is variable pulse rate. And he’d been diagnosing me to that, for that, looking at that and had actually directed me towards a specialist at in [Name of place] for that condition. Saved me actually a lot of time rather than going through the conventional referral to a general heart specialist. So that was particularly good by him and then I also mentioned that I’d got I was I was sort of, you know, suffering this soreness and he had a look at it. And so he sent me to a referral to a consultant who I saw very quickly at the local hospital, local general hospital. And he did a biopsy probably within a month, less than a month I should say, of the GP first saying that there was some concern.

So what encouraged you to seek help?

My partner basically. Just in case anything was more sinister than we thought. She bullied me a little bit into it. But when you think about it you can see the reasons behind it. But at that stage I wasn’t thinking about it.

Do you think you would have gone to see someone else for help if it wasn’t for your partner?

It depends how long. It would probably have been a lot longer than it was. If the lump was still there and I was still worried about it then eventually I probably would have done, yes. But it might have been six months down the line, or further.
 

Back in June 2009 I noticed a pimple on the head of my penis. This was the first time I’d ever seen it and it came immediately after the death of my son. And I didn’t really think any more about it because I was in... so devastated at the time. However the pimple carried on being there, didn’t go away. And a few months later, I think November, it actually had got bigger by then and it actually burst open. Wasn’t that terribly concerned but... and left it until January of 2010. At the beginning of January I thought I’d better go to the hospital and have it checked.

Right, well it’s about fourteen years ago, something like 1996, 1997. I noticed a lump on my penis, and I’d had it for a while, and it just became very, very itchy and sore. and I went to my GP and basically he just said it’s a genital wart so he sent me to the... it’s just known as the VD Clinic and I went there and when they examined me I went with my wife and they said because it’s a genital wart she was tested and swabbed as well which raised a few concerns at the time as to who’d been doing what with who and where and when at the time. But, there was no great issues because our marriage, well we’d been married twenty years plus then and we certainly knew each other really well then and we’re still happily married now but I’m sure something like that posed with someone in a relationship that was a bit shaky it could, I’m certain it would upset it in some way. And it was a concern at the time but then they just basically started treating this thing as a wart. I was going there for something like six or eight weeks. Each week they go and spray it with this nitrogen spray designed to freeze the wart off err and it just made it sore, really, really sore. And in the end they just said, ‘Oh, it will drop off in time, just leave it, it’ll be ok, there’s nothing to worry about.’ And it was a year late, a good, it was a good year later it and was still there this thing and it basically started getting a little bit bigger and it was getting sore. And I went back to the same clinic and told them basically, ‘You said that this would fall away with no problem.’ And from then I was referred to a surgeon and he just basically said to me he’d lop it off, [nods head] which they did.

I found a sore on the penis….thought it would just clear up, just thought I’d…working with stone I just thought It’d be an abrasion or some sort of thing and left it for several months, then when it didn’t clear up I went to the GP. He immediately, without examining me, decided it was herpes, which wasn’t received very well but …..was sent home with a flea in my ear basically and went back 3, 4 months after to see another GP because it still hadn’t cleared up, who then decided to treat me for herpes. Then decided it wasn’t after 3 weeks after that he decided it wasn’t herpes and then sent me to the sex clinic in [Hospital] and….. the doctor there turned round and said that it was a Lichen Sclerosus. And they tried to treat it for several months. In failing to make any progress he then sent me to the skin clinic…which I was attended for about 18 months before I met the top man who decided that it was he wasn’t happy with it. And he had a biopsy done on it and it turned out to be cancer. The story started form 19... sorry 2002. By the time they’d decided it was cancer it was 2005. So it’s a long period of time and... the treatment from then on I was delighted with.

Well I went to the toilet and I found out I had this rash on my down below and I thought well there’s something wrong here. So I went to see my GP. And he tell me it was thrush. He were treating me for it and that. And it just wouldn’t go away. I went back to him again, he give me some more ointment and that. In the time that my surgery where I was, it changed. So I had to go and the GP who I had, he retired. So I saw, I had this other GP. She was giving me the same. It was a different doctor altogether. And it was going worse instead of getting better so I went for a second opinion. And this other GP he had a look at it and he sent me straight to the hospital.