A place to have a chat.

Well, chatting is the main purpose of local peer support groups.

Exactly what any one group does varies enormously, and you choose which activities you're interested in or not. This tends to change depending where you are in your treatment pathway or post-treatment. Before and during initial treatments, you are likely absorbing support experiences from the group. Some time after diagnosis and initial treatment, you may find you can usefully support newer members who have just been diagnosed based on your experiences and what you've learned along the way.

All do chatting.
Some also have WhatsApp and/or Facebook private groups for online chatting.
Some offer 1-2-1 support.
Some do presentations by clinicians.
Some do presentations which are nothing to do with prostate cancer, e.g. maybe local interest.
Some do pub evenings, coffee mornings, etc.
Some do walks (talk and walk).
Some offer exercise classes, complimentary therapies (massage, aromatherapy, acupuncture, meditation, etc).
Some do awareness events where you advise the public on getting checked.
Some run PSA testing events for the public.
Some are specific to some activity like cycling.
Some are specific for LGBTQ+, or black men, etc.
Some hospital ones are specific for their own patients (while other hospital ones are open to other patients).
Some are patients-only (particularly some hospital run ones), while others welcome partners and carers too.
Some are for partners only, and not the patient.
Some do fundraising for prostate cancer charities, or to buy equipment for their local hospital.

Everyone who comes along for an initial chat after being diagnosed says how wonderful the experience was, and they wish they'd come along earlier. We will usually chat with a new patient for typically 60-90 mins when they first approach us, which no clinician has time to do. We can go through things they should be considering, and what to ask their clinicians.

Also there are national and international support groups on Facebook, dedicated forums, or Zoom.
Some UK ones are specific to a particular treatment, such as Active Surveillance, Brachytherapy, or Advanced Prostate Cancer. (International groups will discuss protocols and treatments not available or applicable in the UK, because these are different in every country.)

Edited by member 21 Feb 2024 at 13:21  | Reason: Not specified

Only if people don't use it; hopefully they will...

Edited by member 21 Feb 2024 at 19:32  | Reason: Not specified

Hi Adrian, yes, it was yesterday thank you for asking 😀 (you have a good memory!).

It was all okay -ish! I thought I'd been told to choose between RALP or HT and  RT.

I'd weighed things up and I chose RALP, but...

When I saw the Surgeon he told me I was too porky for RALP and that, and other health issues (heart attack 12 years ago and pulmonary embolism a year ago), also meant that HT & RT was the way to go. So he's started the ball rolling for the HT. 

It's not a massive problem to me, and I do trust him, but I had sort of got my head around the side effects to be expected from prostatectomy, rather than the ones from HT/RT. I also liked the idea that the PSA tests would be reassuringly low if my prostate was gone.

Thinking back, the person who told me my results and itemised the choices, did mention that BMI would be an issue, but I thought that was in relation to Brachytherapy as that was the last treatment type she'd mentioned.

Anyway, I am pleased that Dennis (my cancer - named after a particularly nasty tw*t I had the misfortune to meet at school (with apologies to any other Dennises on here)), is T2 N0 M0.

So onwards and upwards!!

Edited by member 21 Feb 2024 at 21:49  | Reason: spelling

Need a name for this pub now then.

Proctologists Arms?

Hand 'N' Glove?

Hi,

Nothing too thrilling for me this weekend. Glad to report that my issues with having the "trots" immediately following the end of my RT appear to have subsided (for now). I'm now back out walking the dogs up and down the hill. I'll be driving down to Lincoln tomorrow to pick up son no 1 from Uni, he's coming home for his "reading week". Then in the afternoon, I'll be keeping tabs on the mighty Bantams who are playing away at Barrow, hoping for a rare win. Then it'll be my Saturday night curry with some beers whilst watching the Saturday evening footy on telly. Unfortunately, I find rugby a hard watch, I really want to England to win but I expect Scotland will (England more likely to win if I don't watch than if I do). The scoring in rugby does my head in with seemingly easy 3 points being given for the slightest of errors (errors that non-players don't understand), for me rugby would be better if there was more emphasis on scoring tries. 

I really envy you having a grandson playing footy, I would absolutely love that. Unfortunately, I couldn't get either of my two boys interested in football, playing or watching. Instead, they became swimmers and I lost countless hours of my life at swimming pools for their training and racing, including early mornings - nightmare! (advice for any new dads or grandads, be careful when you take the kids for swim, get them to swim yes, but too much and you might end up living there). 

All the ground saturated and boggy around here too. It'll be a couple of weeks before I dust off the old lawn moor and loppers.

Have a good weekend

Spongebob.