Prostate Blues

Like a zillion other guys my age, I have a prostate problem.

More than a couple of years ago, I suddenly found that I could not pee, and knew what damnation without relief felt like.

Since then, I have been a patient undergoing tests and reviews. It has been a weird experience.

I lucked out in being assigned to an excellent consultant, Mr P. He is a lot younger than I am, but already a very senior guy. Ferociously knowledgeable, he is also warm, funny, reassuring, and a great conversationalist. His practice is cutting edge, with no uncomfortable pun intended. He is an enthusiast, a proselytising urologist of limitless energy. I have tried to imagine being an enthusiast for urology, but had to stop as I felt a migraine coming on.

I’d like to see him get some kind of wider recognition, and he richly deserves it.

But the lovely NHS has been a bit stretched during my patienthood, and patience has certainly been required, by patients and staff alike. Appointments have been routinely delayed by a couple of months or more. My MRI scan had to be repeated as the delay between having the scan and meeting with the consultant rendered it diagnostically useless as it was so old by the time we met.

Covid has not helped.

I was due to be reviewed in clinic in June, but that appointment was delayed, and I have a phone appointment in the middle of October instead. Mr P’s view was that we should try to meet, Covid permitting, sometime after another MRI scan which he would book for April 2021. He mentioned that the last scan did not make it entirely clear whether there was a tumour there or not. 

Oh. I had not heard that before. I had a brief pang of anxiety, but know that I am much more likely to die WITH prostate cancer than OF prostate cancer.

I am not keen on all the military metaphors that dance clumsily round the Maypole of disease. A ‘long battle’. A struggle ‘bravely fought’. A determined ‘fight to beat the disease’. These make no sense to me, and I prefer instead to think of the disease as very much part of me, part of my body, and a small step in the gradual decay that comes inevitably with age. My history, genetic make-up, and environment have brought me here, and as long as I can, I will continue to carp my particular diem with all the enthusiasm I can muster.

I really admire the example of David Hume, the great philosopher, and hope one day to emulate his quiet unconcern. Within days of his death he wrote to an old friend:

My disorder … has been gradually undermining me these last two years; but within these six months, has been visibly hastening me to my end. I see death approach gradually, without anxiety or regret. I salute you, with great affection and regard, for the last time.