Interview 05

Age at interview: 68

Age at diagnosis: 67

Brief Outline:

Diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1999, TURP in 1999, external beam radiation and short hormone treatment 2000.

Comments on the factor of 'old age' causing prostate cancer.

Have you ever thought what might have caused it all in the first place?

Old age I always assumed because everybody says that when men get past 55 most of them tend to have prostate problems. Why it should become cancerous I wouldn't know but certainly the very fact that there isn't any other cancer in the body it's obviously a localised thing to do with prostates and I've just left it at that. But I do think it's old age.
 

Comments that he found the biopsy very painful and unpleasant.

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.
 

Describes the initial shock in his family but how they are even more caring now.

Has it affected other relationships within the family?

No, no certainly not, except well yes it's made them more caring, it's made the younger element you know actually a bit of over-protective and I've allowed them to do that unless all this is finished but come next year I expect to take up my normal duties of mowing my grass and one thing and another. But they've lovely and they're a good family anyway but they've sort of gone over more on, since the treatment and since they found out it shook them rigid I think really because they just imagined that if anybody dad wouldn't be poorly you know I mean that's it.
 

Explains how efficient he found the treatment.

We even got to know the other patients. And because I'm a councillor I took my councillor papers there so I was a bit introverted as regards all the others but because the others only had the usual 1948 magazines on the table you know I mean they built up a chat show between them and discussed everything from the weather to the latest political situation you know that was, it was good for them, they were never on their own and of course they were always together as it were you see. So all that was very harmonious and very nice and very quick and very efficient and I couldn't find a fault with that in any way whatsoever. And I bought them a box of chocolates when we left because it was rather, they were really good, they were a nice team.

Explains his disappointment with TURP after confusion over what the operation was for.

When the biopsy came back and the consultant told me that it was an aggressive tumour and that practically all of the prostate was affected by it. I then began to think in my mind, well if it's a 10 year growth and it's all affected I have now had it for this length of time so what's going to happen now? And I raised this question with the consultant, he said 'Well we shall now do tests to see whether or not it's got outside of the prostate.

And so then we went through another sort of series of scans and one thing and another. We had a isotopic bone scan and it said there was nothing in the bones. And at that stage we had not had the conclusive scan which said that it had gone into the tissues so at that stage we were still talking operation.

My perception of the whole thing was that I going to have an operation to remove the prostate. So I signed the form and had the, oh it was about a months wait and then I got in on 13th December. The anaesthetist came round, had his chat, the surgeon or whoever was going to do the job, he came round and had his chat, and off we went, had the operation. When I came round the surgeon came round to see me or one of the team, whether it was the actual man or not I don't know and I said 'Oh I'm surprised,' I said 'You know I thought it was sort of a bigger operation than this,' you know because we were talking, going home by the weekend, this was the Tuesday or something. So he said 'Oh no,' he said 'We think it's done the job anyway and everything looks alright and we're quite happy.' I don't know how it came about but I said 'So that will be the end of it then?' sort of thing you know I said 'and at least we've got rid of the, we shan't have this sort of problem again?' And he said 'Well it won't affect the prostate,' and I said 'What do you mean?' and he replied, 'Well all we've done is take the pressure off your kidneys.' I said 'But I came in to have the prostate removed,' 'Well no,' he said 'No, we were not commissioned to do that,' he said 'We haven't removed the prostate,' he said 'We have done this enlargement and we did the operation to take the pressure off your kidneys because that's what your doctor was originally bothered about.

And he said 'Er this would never have cured your prostate cancer.' I said 'Well that's what I came in for,' I said 'That was the only reason I agreed to have an operation, my family had said you know you've got cancer in your body and it shouldn't stay there and what have you.' And he said 'Well you've either been misinformed or misled or whatever,' he said 'But this was never the intention.' So I said 'Oh well, that's a bit disappointing.'
 

Describes the pressure from family not to stay with watchful waiting.

Having read all the side effects and everything that I wasn't going to do anything because my doctor said hundreds of thousands of people are walking about with it, the rate of growth is X, Y, Z and what have you so I wasn't going to have anything done about it. Then my family began to put pressure on me and say you know 'Dad you've got a cancer, you know you really ought to do something, cancers even if they're slow they don't stand still and what have you and if you go beyond 70 and I'm 68 now, if you go beyond 70 they won't do it anyway sort of thing. Because they'd told me that you see because you haven't got the life expectancy which would justify doing it so that's what they said. So they began to put pressure on to me so I went back and I reassessed the situation and this was about the August time.