17th July 2012 – the day I thought would never happen in my life !

I attended Royal Shrewsbury Hospital for my results and saw my clinical nurse. Now all through the tests, PSAs , DREs, Blood, Biopsy’s I was confident I was ok. I had no symptons of anything, no water works problems, never had blood in urine. I had given up smoking 7 years earlier and now climb mountains as a hobby. So what was all this to do with me?

I was the last person called in and I was so confident everything was going to me alright. Afterall , my PSA was only 5.3 and the DRE was ok.

People say that you should take someone with you for support for such visit, but I was so confident I went on my own. I was on my own for the visit, but I had taken advice from people online and prepared two sets of questions. One for the positive result, one set for the negative result. The Clinical Nurse sat me down and made sure I was comfortable - that’s when I noticed the Macmillan Cancer book on the desk in her folder. She then , in a really nice and calm way told me my result was positive for Cancer, but she said , don't worry , it is really low risk and one they can treat really well . Stunned would be an understatement.

We went through all my questions but in summary it was:

Early Localised Cancer.
Out of 12 Cores on Biopsy, 6 on right, 6 on left
1 core on right was positive with 5% cancer - Adenocarcenoma
0 cores were positive on the left
Clinical stage not yet known
Gleeson 3+3=6

She was fabulous and advised me to get in touch with ProstrateCancerUk which i already had done. She said she was going on holiday for a week , however she was booking me in for an urgent MRI within the next 10 days. If I didn’t have an appointment whilst she was away i was to immediately contact her the Monday she was back. That would also be the same day I was back as I was having a week at Scout and Guide Camp doing voluntary work. She said that when the MRI was done, the clinical teams meet the Friday after to discuss the results and I would find out the week after.

We talked about possible treatment, she said that Shrewsbury offer Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy, Open Radical and Radiotherapy No mention was made of Active Surveillance. I needed to educate myself, but all this was going over my head – fact was I now had Cancer and we were now looking at MRI scans to see if it was spreading.

I asked for a copy of the pathology report so it can be sent to ProstateHealthUK, the company who had done my initial check. She said I could have this but probably when the MRI done and I go back in for the results.

The next week duly came at the end of that week on 27th July, I received a letter issued on 25th July booking me an appt for an MRI on 7th August 2012 at 2:15pm at Princes Royal Hospital , Telford for MRI Abdomen and MRI Pelvis. So much for an urgent MRI within 10 days!! Early indications here of the lack of efficiency of the NHS in the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust.