Prostate journey - Kev Saunderson 

April 2021 - Contacted by my local GP to have a well man blood test. 

May 2021 - Blood tests come back. Everything is in its right place apart from my PSA levels being higher than normal. What’s a PSA, I asked. Prostate-Specific-Antigen:  PSA is a protein produced by normal cells in the prostate and also by prostate cancer cells. It’s normal to have a small amount of PSA in your blood, and the amount rises slightly as you get older and your prostate gets bigger. A raised PSA level may suggest you have a problem with your prostate, but not necessarily cancer. *Taken from Prostate Cancer UK website.

May 2021 - Called by Nurse Emma, from my local surgery to explain the above and to arrange an examination with a male nurse 👆. 

May 2021 - Go for my exam on a Friday afternoon to my surgery. The male nurse asks me a few questions about my toilet habits / sexual performance. I tell him they are both incredible and he looks like he doesn’t believe me. I am then asked to get on a bed, pull my pants down and get into the fetal position (lie on your left side and bring your knees up to your chest). Then with a firm warning, a finger is inserted up my bum hole. Just like that. Straight up there. Not just a quick poke too. It’s up and then it feels like it does some Michael Jackson dance move while it’s in there. That’s very appropriate, because the noises I was making in my head were ‘OOOOOWWWWWW!!’. Madness. Not even an apology. 

After the examination, the nurse gives me something really good to think about all weekend when he says, ‘That’s really big. Prostates that size could suggest there is a problem there like CANCER. Cheers mate. Just to help me relax over the weekend pass me a prescription for 10mg of Setraline and all the Codine your pharmacy next door has 👍🙃 I am then told I will be referred to a Urologist in Broadgreen. Onwards! 

June 2021 - Me and my Wife go to meet my Urologist at the amazing Broadgreen, who is sitting with a University of Liverpool student. Massive tip here for anyone going for a Urologist appointment, if they have a University student sitting with them and the Urologist wants to examine you, they will 99.9% of the time ask you if the student can examine you AS WELL. That’s double bubble in one sitting. Bear in mind this won’t just be a quick sweep of your A-hole. It will be a little bit longer as the student is learning on the job. The job in this situation is my bum hole. I won’t go into this any further. You can use your imagination on how awkward the whole experience is. I never even mentioned the Chaperone being there! I’ll save that for another day though! May and June 2021 were tough months 😂

August 2021 - Following the Urologist appointment, it was suggested that I go for an MRI scan to check everything was okay. August was the month I went for this. I think most people know what this entails but you are stripped to your underwear and put a hospital gown on. You then enter the MRI scanning machine which basically looks like a massive polo mint with a tiny bed in the middle of it. You lie on this and the NHS team slide you inside the polo mint. Every scan is different timescale wise (I think) but mine was around 30-35 minutes. You have headphones on and some padded device rests on your torso. I’d never been in an MRI machine before so didn’t know what to expect. I wouldn’t class myself a person who is claustrophobic but it is quite intense. The crazy noises coming from the the machine add to the drama as well. I think I coped well though. When the noises were coming through, I imagined I was listening to some crazy techno from Berlin. Think Josh Wink ‘Higher State of Consciousness’ (One for the 90s ravers) and your halfway there 👍

October 2021 - MRI results time! 😬😬 A very worrying build up to this meeting. Are you gonna get good news or is it gonna be the word health word we all dread to hear. It was slightly positive. Slightly in the sense that nothing was detected but the Urologist suggested that I was on her radar it would be good for me to be kept on her books to monitor. Back to see her in February with an updated PSA blood test result. 

On the plus side, no University student so no bum hole check 🕺🏻💃🏻

February 2022 - Blood test done, results back and my PSA is gradually higher. Urologist explains that this just might be me as a person and regardless of my age that might just be who I am. A 40 odd year old with PSA levels equivalent to a mid 50 year old. Another MRI was suggested. Me and my wife are all for it and it is booked in for June 2022. 

June 2022 - MRI completed on the day before the day before the Queens Bank Holiday long weekend. More importantly, I’m off to see Liam Gallagher that night. Hurry up MRI. I’ve got to practice my Manc walk 🚶🏻‍♂️

June 2022 - Results are back from the MRI. This time they’re slightly a bit more concerning. Something is there. Something that needs further investigation. The further investigation is a Biopsy. It will be at the end of July. My keks are starting to roll up a bit now. 

July 2022 - Here goes. Early morning one this. I’m at the hospital around 7.30am. My nerves are gone. I’ve prayed to anything and everything that this goes smooth….and it does! But it’s not a nice experience. 

The morning started with me needing to provide a water sample but I had stage fright, regardless of how many pints of water I downed. It was probably about 25 minutes before a trickle came out. A trickle was enough though 👍 Then, Hospital gown on and wait for my name to be called. Ten minutes after waiting in a room full of other men in hospital gowns, all having a laugh, my name is called and I walk into what looked like a really mean looking, mini theatre. From what I can remember, there were four staff in the room. The gentleman who would take the cuttings from my prostate, the lady who would take these samples away, a gentleman who watched everything on the camera inserted inside of me and the gentleman who would act as my motivator / confidence booster. 

The procedure involved 14 samples being taken from my prostate with some mad tools. The one that takes the samples is loud. Think heavy duty building site stapler loud. You are told when the samples are being taken to try and not jump as it may result in them having to take more of them. If there is a man out there who hasn’t jumped by hearing that sound and knowing it is inside them, fair play. You’re better at that than me. You win this round 👏 Definitely not me. I jumped probably every single time. 

Luckily, the samples taken were suffice and I was allowed to leave. 
 

The periods after the procedure, you will be told to do some stuff and also things to watch out for..

• There will be blood in your pee
• There will be blood in your poo
• There will be blood in your semen

All of the above, for sometime too. Maybe a couple of days with your wee and poo. Your semen though, you could have that a little bit longer. You are encouraged to ejaculate, to get rid of the blood, as much as you can. Sounds great doesn’t it…..and it obviously is but blood in your semen is not a nice sight. Be warned!

A few other things I didn’t mention about the biopsy. Your legs are in stirrups during the procedure and it lasts about 10-15 minutes (based on my experience). Speaking of stirrups, I have a mate who told me about his biopsy procedure not long ago. He explained that halfway through the procedure, one of the stirrups collapsed and his leg dropped. The team had to stop the biopsy and look for another stirrup. After a good search they couldn’t find one so they brought a University student into the room and asked them to act as a stirrup for my mates leg 😂 He described it as ‘mortifying and embarrassing’ 😂😂

4th August 2022 - I was off work still recovering from my biopsy when I received a call from the Urology Nurses at around 8.30am asking if I could get into the hospital that afternoon. Not a problem but I asked was everything okay. This was met with something along the lines of, ‘we’ll discuss everything when you get here’. Oh god. Here we go.

3pm that day, I go to meet the Urologist with my wife. She asks me how I’m feeling after the biopsy and how I’d been at home recovering. The conversation seems to flow for a long time without anything being mentioned about the results. This must be good news, I thought. Then, our world just stopped for a bit. 

No one wants to hear those words. You know what I mean. The ‘c’ word, the big casino. Unfortunately though, it was my turn. I can’t remember much of the conversation when I was told, I just remember key words / sentences. Things like,

 ‘Gleeson score of 7. Yours is 6’,
 

‘You can just monitor it’, 

‘men live with this for years without any issues’, ‘radiotherapy’ 

‘have it taken out’

‘Your quality of life won’t change. You’ll leave here today and be able to get on with your life’

Words. That’s all they were. The main line though that I remember was, ‘and I’m afraid it’s cancer’. 

I was shocked, in a daze, a trance. My wife will tell you I’m usually someone who looks for a joke in any situation. Always like a crap Dad joke. One that usually only I laugh at. I couldn’t this time though. Laugh or tell a joke. 

The conversation ended with the Urologist saying I would be contacted with a follow up appointment in October to see how I felt a few months on. My stance at the very beginning was let’s just monitor things and take it from there. 

August to October - This was a particularly tough time. For a few reasons. One was the obvious diagnosis. The other was my work situation. In a mad twist to the events, the day before I had been diagnosed with Stage 2 Prostate Cancer, I had been offered a job at a new company. The day after my diagnosis, I spoke with my new potential manager and explained the situation to him to see where the land lies. His stance was he still wanted me to be a part of their company and any support in relation to health and appointments would not be an issue. It made me feel on top of the world and my mind was made up, I would be starting a new job! 

My job at this time of year is as hectic a period as you can get. Purpose Built Student Accommodation. A Property Manager. It involves everything from dealing with staff, running a building, managing its health and safety, it’s compliance, dealing with tenants issues, clearing and maintaining rooms of departing customer and getting rooms ready for new customers. 

August is the point of the year where most things are ready for the new intake providing you have the right team all pulling in the save direction. I did not feel we were doing as much as we could to get everything over the line. On top of that, two brilliant staff members were transferred across to other sites. This left a massive void and also added pressure to yours truly. 

Without going into too much detail, there was one particular day when it completely got to me.