Interview 14

Age at interview: 76

Age at diagnosis: 71

Brief Outline: Diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1995. TURPs in 1995 and 1997 followed by an orchidectomy.

Background:

Describes how he found the operation a minor ordeal.

So I thought well I'm getting older so I said I'll [have the operation]. I was castrated. 

For other men who might be worrying about making that decision was it done with a local anaesthetic, the castration?

Yeah it's a sort of a nothing job really.

Is it?

Yeah

Perhaps you could just tell other men what's it like because they might be worrying about it.

Yeah well I mean there's about three things they give you and you have to make up your mind you know you sort of can't tell anybody else what to do can you but I, you know I thought well I thought if I'd got to go down there every month or something, have injections here and something else I thought if I'm castrated, because if I'd been younger perhaps I wouldn't have done, but it's nothing, it's a nothing job really.

Who does that, do you go to the hospital for that?

They done that at the hospital yeah.

At the hospital

Yeah

Just with a local anaesthetic?

Yeah, you don't know you're having it done really

Really so it didn't take long?

A couple of minutes.

Is it that quick?

Yeah [laughs] it's, because you can't feel no different, you can't feel no different at all. Of course you don't get an erection or anything after, nothing like that you know but...

Are there any other side-effects?

No, no so whether I made the wrong decision or not I don't know but [laughs].

At least you haven't got to have the injections every month then.

No nothing, that was it, that was a one off. If you was castrated that was it. I don't know what else there was, there was injection in there and there was something else, but it was something you'd got to keep, it was something you'd got to keep having done you know. So I took that.

Good.

I made the decision there and then, that's it.

How did your wife feel about that, was that alright for her?

Well as I said we're getting old, we're getting old

So it was alright.

Yeah she, I mean I was over 70 then you know so I thought well

So it was quite an easy decision for you to make

It was quite easy to make yeah.

Good.

If I was younger I might have to think about it a little bit but no it was easy decision to make.