12 People went and got PSA tests for Prostate Cancer

If you’ve been following my story, I’ve been asking for $5 donations for the NZ Cancer Society Relay For Life event where my friends and I will be walking around a track for 18 hours on 19 and 20 March.

I’ve also been encouraging everyone I can to go and get a PSA blood test AFTER checking their insurance cover, because as my insurance broker said to me once they found malignant tumors, “You are now uninsurable!”

Today I was talking to one of my colleagues, who has also been a generous donor to this cause and he told me that he and 3 of his colleagues have all been to get PSA blood tests. That means that now 12 people have gone and had tests as a consequence of hearing my news. That is awesome!

Hopefully all 12 are clear and they now have a base line so that in future years they will be able to monitor their levels, which is how I found out that I have cancer. My levels weren’t high at all, but they were increasing consistently every 6 months or so, which alerted my GP to the fact that there could be a problem.

Thank you all so much for your support, whether it’s donations, offers to drive me around when I’ve been over tired, colleagues for supporting me when I’ve had time off work, cards, offers of places to stay for a break and the “how are you doing” comments, tweets, Facebook and LinkedIn messages. It’s quite overwhelming and I’m feeling very humbled.

Most exciting of all though is the people getting tested because of me. If I could save one life or reduce the impact on someone because they found out early, wouldn’t that be something! Go Team Early Birds!

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My Prostate Cancer Might Save Other Lives

This could be boring, so stop now if you don’t want details, but after this if you don’t mind. So far since I wrote my I have Prostate Cancer blog, 4 people have said they will now go and get PSA tests. If I can help one person to catch it early like I did, then going public on this would be a huge success. It’s just a simple blood test.

Many thanks to those of you who left me messages of support on my various social media pages. It really is appreciated. Guys, you don’t need to have the digit inserted in most cases. In my case that did nothing other than make my sphincter smart for 10 minutes. What is going to save my life is the fact that I had multiple tests and each test the PSA level was higher than the previous one. I am still within the level that is considered unlikely to have tumors and I have 4 or 5.

When I first found out I had cancer I read all the material, visited Dr Google, rang the cancer society for info and bought a book Winning the Battle Against Prostate Cancer, which came highly recommended. But I wouldn’t recommend any of them unless you need to. It’s pretty ugly reading about the possible side effects of the treatments. I joined a cancer community, which is cool, but not really for me.

Then I did my best to put it out of my mind until I had to think about it, which is now. So while I have been on active surveillance, other than tests and biopsies, I did my best to put it out of my mind. No point in dwelling on it any more than you need to.

So this blog is mostly a journaling exercise on my part to help me work through my trip to remission. If it helps other people, awesome, if no one reads it, that’s cool too.

So the next blogs will be about my journey. It’s probably of most interest to people who first find out they have cancer and perhaps to those who want to know how to relate to someone who has this condition.

It’s kind of interesting because I don’t want this to define me, I have more important things in my life like music, family and a job I am passionate about. I’m not after attention or sympathy. The journaling may be a catharsis of sorts and may answer questions for some people. I’m open to questions or comments and all opinions and experiences are mine. I’m not a doctor. Don’t rely on me for any medical advice other than if you are a male over 50, IMHO start getting PSA tests with your annual check up.