Well, this is shitty news!

🙄 I knew it was coming

It was the day that I was dreading the most, yet strangely, the day that I needed to come sooner than anything else. After all those needles, scans, fingers up my bum and biopsy's, I just needed to know! What is happening with my prostate?

Thank you for coming along on the ride so far, it does not feel as lonely a journey now. Before I go any further, would you mind hitting that subscribe button below and consider sharing this on your socials with your friends and family so that we can help build awareness of this unwanted prostate squatter! Cheers ears👍🏻

Back to diagnosis day. These were the days of post-covid and everything was still very much elbow bumping, mask wearing and going to hospital appointments on your own. Again, with my appointment letter in hand, off I went to the arse end of the local County hospital grounds in readiness for ‘the’ appointment with Dr Akhtar. I strangely remember the weather, it was warmish and light and had a sense of calm about the day, it was like the world knew what was coming my way and was kind enough not to deliver a rain shower and get me soaking wet to boot.

As I headed into the Urology department, I felt like a primary school kid going into their first day of school. Alone and nervous of what was to come. I headed through the double doors and to the reception desk and checked in. As I sat in the waiting room, I had flashbacks of the last time I was here…I would far prefer to encounter Dr ‘sausage fingers’ today than have to sit here for this news.

As I sat there, I watched other patients being called by different members of the urology team and I wandered what they were here for. Are they getting the same news as me, were they recently here in this chair waiting for the same appointment as I am today. It was then that I first met Dr Akhtar…”Mr Stevenson”, it was like it was a friendship that was just meant to be. He had a really welcoming, comforting, Dad like persona about him. As he called my name in a waiting room of patients he looked directly at me. It was like we just had an immediate bond, or, it could have been that I was the only 40 something year old in a waiting room packed with 70+ year olds.

“Hi”, I smiled, stood up and followed Dr Akhtar down this little corridor into his consulting room. Phew, at least it was not the same room as I had been in previously where my lily white arse was last exposed to the world. As I sat and looked around, I noticed that he had a pile of files on his desk and what looked like an x-ray image on his screen. I wandered if I was finally meeting my prostate, is that the insides of me?

👆🏻Just to confirm, this is not Dr Akhtar! This is an actor from the 1980’s pretending to be Dr Akhtar for the purposes of this post.

Doctor Akhtar: “Hello Mr Stevenson, we are just going to wait for Carol one of the urology nurses to join us”

My Brain: “Urology nurse is joining us, this is not good, not good at all. What does he need a nurse in with us for? Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck…I do not want to be here, I do not want to hear what he has to say. Do you think he would mind if I just got up and left”

If this was a script for an episode of Eastenders, it would now read <Enter nurse from behind Mark, with a look of deep sorrow on face>:

Nurse: “Hi Mr Stevenson”

Me: “Hi, please call me Mark. Mr Stevenson is my Dad’s name” (classic hey!)

Dr Akhtar: “Mr Stevenson, following the biopsy and scans that we have been doing…blah blah blah blah, you have Stage 3 prostate cancer”

My Brain: “ Nope, not registering that thank you Dr. Not today, not tomorrow, not fucking ever. I am 46 years old and this is an older mans issue. You can keep whatever Stage 3 prostate cancer is and I am out of here”

Me: “Oh, OK. What does that mean?”

Dr Akhtar: “The cancer has gone outside of the prostate wall and we recommend that you have a prostatectomy for the best chances of longevity”

My Brain: “Shit, shit, shit. I know what that is, I have come across this conversation before with Mr Chair (check this post out) when he got diagnosed with prostate cancer. This is not good, not good. Longevity? What does that fucking mean!”

Me: “OK”

The rest of this conversation was a blur, a lot was spoken about. Me being shown the x-rays on the screens of my prostate, number relating to something called a Gleason Score and the nurse handing me pamphlets. Fucking pamphlets…I don’t want pamphlets that tells me what treatment is and where to get support. I don’t want to have to deal with this at all, I ain’t ready for this kind of seriousness.

I really needed Louise there, I really needed her to be there and to listen and ask questions on my behalf. I didn’t know what they were saying to me, I could just not take the news in. The Dr would be saying something and it was like watching an episode of Peanuts and the Dr was the Woodstock character…I needed Snoopy to interpret what he was telling me.

It got to the point where I had outstayed my welcome with the Doc, of course he had other patients to see and the nurse led me through the waiting room into this side room. When I walked through the waiting room, it felt like everyone knew more than me…“He has had bad news given to him today”. That is all I could think at that time, these people are looking at me with pity because they have all know what I have just been told.

I sat in this dank, one chair room and the nurse bought me a cup of tea. Tears welled up and I cried in disbelief of what had just been shared with me. What do I do now? How do I tell Louise, the kids, my Mum and Dad?

My Brain: “Pull yourself together Stevenson. Get your shit together and get out of this Urology department. Sitting here is not going to change anything”

I walked out of there like a zombie and I could not even tell you what happened immediately/shortly after. I think that my brain decided not to remember this part of my life to protect me from the emotions that I was experiencing at the time.

Cancer! I was fucking devastated.

Over the following days I shared the news with a close knit of people around me and I waited for that next appointment letter to land. If there is anything that I have learnt from this that I can pass on, it is to make sure that you have someone with you for all of the appointments. If your brain is anything like mine, it is not designed to process the information…get yourself some support.

Are you ready for the next bit…head on over to my next post “Congratulations, you have won yourself a Penis Pump!”

If you need more support then there are some great charities ready to help:

United Kingdom: https://prostatecanceruk.org

United States: https://www.pcf.org