Prostate Cancer – What’s stopping you?

Are you Black or mixed race and over 40?

Is it the fear of the doctor? Is it the fear of showing your parts to a doctor? Or the probing, or the intrusive tests? If you even suspect something is wrong with you, but you just don’t know what it is? Go see your doctor now! Go and see them, and ask for tests. It could save your life.

You may be angry about my tone in this post. But I’m asking you, brothers, to wake up and be honest with yourself. Do you love life? For if you do seize the moment and be proactive. I say all of this in the harsh tone because my own father lies in a hospital bed tonight Lies in a hospital bed away from his family, because he needs 24/7 care.

My Father has advanced-stage prostate cancer. It has spread to his spine, and it will kill him. Any time now, and it makes me so sad. So sad that my dad didn’t realise what might have been wrong with him, so sad that he hated the doctors so much he couldn’t bear to go until he became ill, so mad that his cancer had advanced beyond curable when they found it. So, so angry I lost my dad, my mum lost her husband, and my daughter will never really know my dad, the man who waited so long to meet her… before she was born.

13 years ago, when my dad was diagnosed. There hadn’t been that much awareness; today, there is a lot more, but still not enough. Please, please, if you’re reading this, please, if you know anyone who is 50 or over and has problems peeing, you hear them straining to go in the night…..do something, get them to a doctor. If that man is you straining in the night with a full bladder….Do something for the love of your family, do something. Before it’s too late.

 

I apologise for this dark tone of this message, but not for the call to action.