I feel very lucky! When I was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer late 2014 I was offered two choices, surgery or Xray. I saw both consultants and after hearing the offering from the Xray consultant (too complicated for me) I whizzed along the corridor and left a message for the surgery consultant to "take it out!"
I was operated on by the Da Vinci Robot in April 2015. Five days in the ward, ten days incontinent, then overnight I was back to 'normal!' I had just had my 70th birthday. I'm a keen long-distance hiker/camper and in June 2019 I decided to hike Offas Dyke. It proved to be a mistake, after a week I kept wetting myself, especially when walking downhill, so I returned home feeling down in the dumps.
In July, I now felt much better, I went to Hendaye, France, next to the Spanish border on the Bay of Biscay and over the next 49 days I walked and camped (all but 4 days) across the Pyrenees to Banyuls-Sur-Mere on the Mediterranean, I think it's about 600 miles long? For the first few days, I kept telling myself I was off my trolley, but when I reached St. Jean-Pied-de-Port I was really into the swing of it. I had loads of little adventures like on day 15 at dawn, five large domesticated pigs tried to get in my tent with me, I fought them off! On day 17, I realised I had a groin hernia, obviously, I wasn't as fit as I thought I was. Panic!
I still had to walk for three more days, hand in pocket to a village called Lareau. Luckily the young student behind the camping site desk spoke great English. She kindly found out that at Orleron, 50 miles north there was a medical warehouse. I hitchhiked there the next day and bought myself a truss and this allowed me to carry on walking to the end of my walk. On my last hitchhike car back to my tent, I was picked up by an old man and his wife who only wanted to know what religion I was. I tried to evade his questions but in the end, I told him I had no belief, so he stopped the car and told me to get out! On day 30 the campsite owner and family had organised a soiree for all customers and he provided the alcohol and the nibbles, I still don't remember getting back to my tent! And on day 42 I met a fellow hiker who lived in the next village to my family in Kent and he was the church warden of the church where my mother and father are buried. Spooky! My hernia was repaired in November 2015 and no problems since.
Since then I've carried on hiking here, there and everywhere, even the Pennine Way, both ways! This year I hiked and camped across Gran Canaria, it took me three days. I walked for two weeks from Keswick to Carlysle, to Housesteads on Hadrians Wall, to Kirk Yelholm, to Peebles and then to Edinburgh in April with sunshine all the way! Brilliant! And in August I walked the Two Moors Way over 9 days from Ivybridge, across Dartmoor and Exmoor to Lynmouth.
I've had blood tests every year, I've never had to take medication and next year, still assuming no problems I'll be formally discharged from my hospital!
On November 11th 2019 I will be climbing Great Gable in the Lake District to be on the summit at 11.00am with a 'thousand' other people! I feel so lucky and forever grateful to my surgeon, the hospital staff and the Da Vinci Robot!
Would I have done these things if I hadn't been diagnosed with Cancer? I don't know, but once known it certainly motivated me to want to live life to the full!