Hi All. I wanted to share with you my last 18 month experience of being diagnosed with prostate cancer and treatment to help others. I was 44 years old when I passed blood. Thought not too much of it, but thought I should talk to my GP. She advised it was probably nothing and would probably go away, however I wanted to understand why this happened, so asked to get a private referral as didn’t want to wait the 3-4 months that I would need to on the NHS. So glad I did, as my consultant was great and honest that the best way to know what was going on was to have a number of tests including MRI. All test came back clear accept the MRI which showed a couple of small patches that could be cancer. It then followed that I had a biopsy via MRI to sample those areas which unfortunately came back as prostate cancer. I was shocked as thought this happens (if you’re unlucky) when your in your 60’s or 70’s and I was 44, sat in a waiting room with gentlemen who were older.
Because of my age the options I was advised on were HIFU or surgery. My consultant was a specialist in HIFU and advised that I also got a view from a surgeon (which I did) on removal, so I could weigh things up. The decision I made was HIFU which I had in March 2020, literally a few weeks before COVID lockdown. Also it happened to be my 45th birthday, so won’t ever forget the date. Clearly lucky and unlucky, firstly to get treated quickly, but obviously unlucky to be in the situation I found myself in.
I’m now 16 months on and had the year scan which had showed the treatment had done it’s job and that my PSA had dropped from 1.32 to 0.52. As I mentioned earlier everything accept my scan looked reasonably normal. I clearly early on and don’t want to count my chickens, but wanted to share so men don’t wait and get a full set of investigations as in my case if I didn’t I would be in a significantly worse place. Also it seems HIFU isn’t offered to many so wanted to share this as well. It’s not a treatment without side effects, but definitely in my experience not too bad.