Prostate Cancer

Do you mind describing how the biopsy was, for other people?

No it was conducted by the nurse who did the scans on me, the smaller scans, not the big body one and she said 'Well,' she said 'This may, you may feel a sensation here,' she said 'we are going to like prick you,' and she explained taking out a little core. She said 'I'll explain exactly what it is,' she said, and I forget to be honest how many places, it may be have been 3 or it may have been 6, something like that. And yes I did feel like a puncture but very, very quick, a slight discomfort and they also gave me some antibiotic tablets to take because they said because we have punctured it, there will be some bleeding, don't worry, that's what it is, it's the puncture, it may last for 2 or 3 days.

So that wasn't too uncomfortable?

Oh no, no, no I was, it was no worse than a wasp sting or something like that, no agony, no writhing around.
 

Privacy and dignity I think remains a challenge for the National Health Service. And much as with health information for patients I did encounter some truly fantastic practice from some truly admirable practitioners but I also had some exposure to the other end of the spectrum, people for whom privacy and dignity of a patient is clearly not a particularly dominant concern. There were occasions when whilst going through some pretty undignified procedures either with the biopsy for example or the cystogram for example, there were occasions when doors were flung open and people would just walk in and out and not introduce themselves and they clearly had nothing to do with what was going on with me. And whilst I can tolerate that up to a point in a dentist's chair if the dental nurse walks in and out it's quite different from when, put bluntly, your ass is sticking up in the air.

I'll illustrate it with just one or two examples. At the pre-operative outpatient stage after the TRUS biopsy (the trans rectal ultrasound biopsy) whilst waiting in a crowded corridor full of other patients and their relatives a clinician whom I'd not encountered at any stage during the procedure itself and who had her coat on ready to leave stuck her head into the crowded corridor to shout in my general direction that I should expect to see blood in my semen for a period of time after this biopsy. Now admittedly that's useful information to have, I don't deny that but the circumstances under which the information was delivered was far from ideal. It caused all heads to turn in my direction for what was for me the unique experience of being in a crowded corridor of a bunch of people who all were probably thinking about my semen [laugh] and I'd rather they weren't. Now that was a highly avoidable example. It would have taken literally just seconds longer for me to be taken to a room somewhere or even just behind a curtain somewhere for this information to be imparted to me with a little greater discretion. So I firmly believe that that has nothing to do with resources. It has to do with personal choice, personal practice. It has to do with training. It has to do with culture. Perhaps it has also has to do with managerial performance management practice because these things go on because we work in a system that allows them to go on. If we stopped allowing them to go on then they wouldn't go on. So that, that is one example.

So it's at that kind of level that I think that privacy and dignity are not always well attended to. Although I hasten to add that I did have plenty of exposure to the other end of the spectrum as well. Some really admirable clinicians and wonderful human beings who did a first class job of plying me with information and also attending to my privacy and dignity. They deserve the credit but I'm just making a particular point about what I hope would be the minority of people at the other end of the spectrum. But it's a minority that can make a fundamental difference to the patient's experience of the process of care.
 

It was very painful, in fact I had to have a lay down after it. I think I might have been a bit of a wimp, I don't know because other people didn't, they found it very uncomfortable, but they didn't seem to need a second sort of resting session whereas I felt, I think the whole series of events that has happened through this I think that the biopsy was the worst thing I had. And obviously it's not a big deal or anything like that but it was, it was painful. I think may be it's because you've got the sound of the sort of snip and what have you, you know, and I mean it's to you but anyway I found that very, very unpleasant, very, very unpleasant.