Prostate cancer is all the rage. Now that Giles Coren was told he has a prostate so ineffectively cancerous that it requires no action, everyone wants it. It’s a fashion statement. For men of certain age it has taken over from a Harley Davidson as ‘the must have thing’ for between your legs. And prostate cancer has now overtaken all those ‘women’s things’ as the number one cancer killer in the country. And as another ‘survivor’ (so far, and hoping) of prostate… issues, I’ve been there, done that, bought the t-shirt and still remain no wiser than I was before having cameras, tubes, needles, baseball bats, shoved into every orifice where you really don’t want them.

Prostate cancer is definitely a killer. Bob Monkhouse died of it. But it doesn’t just affect comedians, or funny people in general, like Giles. It’s for everyone. Who owns a prostate. So it’s a very gender discriminatory disease. People who ‘identify as men’ don’t get it.

But the problem is, there are no absolute tests. No way of screening. Mainly because every man over a certain age has an ‘enlarged prostate’. It’s only when that ‘enlargement’ is due to a tumour, or even pre-cancerous cells, that action is required. It is said that every man dies WITH prostate cancer, but not rarely from it.

This was my path, about 4 years ago, pretty similar to that of Mnsr Coren, which he outlined on the weekend.

My ‘PSA’ was a bit high. Therefore there’s a “14 DAY PROTOCOL!!!” to be seen by a consultant. I did that. He stood there with rubber gloves on. Which extended up just past his elbows. That’s more worrying than the prostate. Prostate’s enlarged. Hmmmm. Get a scan. Over to the MRI and yes, its enlarged, but we can’t see the nature of that enlargement. Need a biopsy. Oh, and while you’re there, we might as well stick a camera down your nob, you know, tick a few more boxes, bit of fun, how painful can a Nikon be?

Giles had his ‘biopsy’ done under a local anaesthetic. Good luck to him. I had a general. He went to the Royal Free. I went to the King Edward VII. Firstly because the doorman wears a top hat. And secondly because if its good enough for Princess Kate, its good enough for all us princesses.

But I’m glad I did. I was out of it, felt no pain, had no side effects. Other than a bit of blood… where blood doesn’t normally appear. And the result was…

The cells of my enlargement were ‘atypical’. Not ‘cancerous’, thank gawd, not even ‘abnormal’ (an euphemism for cancerous), but atypical. Whatever the fuck that means.

What it actually means is that the tests for prostate cancer, PSA, is useless. 70% of men with raised PSA don’t have prostate cancer. 25% of men with advanced cancer have normal PSA. MRI is non-specific in most cases and even a biopsy is ambiguous.

Which kind’a leads you to just adopt a somewhat “are you feeling lucky, punk??” approach, because your guess is almost as good as theirs. (He says whilst on the phone arranging my annual PSA). So get yourself tested! Or not.

I was a trend-setter. A ground-breaker. A fashion GOD!!!

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx