Whilst I was in hospital then they did, they asked, or they told me that it would be wise to have a biopsy. Small pieces, very minute pieces of the tumour taken away. The idea of it frightened me to death and then it was explained that it was not going to be painful, a little bit uncomfortable but certainly not painful, it wasn’t even necessary to give me an anaesthetic, but I did have to sign consent forms because I went into theatre. But the nurse was very supportive, the surgeon was very supportive, nothing to be frightened of and it was true. So it he took I think it was about seven samples, seven or nine samples by going in through the anus, into, into the prostate gland and removing tiny little pieces. And it was just as if a ballpoint pen had been pressed on my hand, it wasn’t even sharp, but there was a click each time it was done and then went back to the ward and recovered very quickly, nothing to worry about whatsoever. If I was told I as going to have it tomorrow it wouldn’t worry me at all, and far less, far less traumatic than going to the dentist.

Do you know if they used any local anaesthetic or anything?

No they didn’t use any anaesthetic at all, it wasn’t necessary.

And were there any side effects of the biopsy?

Noyes I was, just afterwards I passed blood in the urine for a short while, a few days and a little bit uncomfortable when I went to the toilet, when I passed stools, it was just that little bit sore. But after that no problems at all.

So what happened after that, did you go back to the consultant?

Yes, I started then to go to the consultant, he wanted to see me, he gave me a date when oh it was a PSA, I had to go back for a PSA. No the PSA was done by my practice nurse and the blood was sent to the hospital and then I went and was introduced to the prostate cancer nurse, with the consultant together and was telling me then the procedure was, would I be prepared to have hormone treatment because that would be the best at this stage rather than going straight in for chemotherapy but to have this hormone treatment which sounded a bit traumatic at the time but I was prepared to have it.

Were there any other alternatives, did they say you could just do nothing?

The other alternative wouldve been to have had chemotherapy but it was suggested that that was probably not necessary if the hormone therapy worked and I wouldn’t have as much side, there wouldn’t be as many side-effects, a bit easier.

Did you feel at the hospital you were given enough information to make choices about treatment?

No I didn’t get much opportunity for choice really I was, the choice was would you be prepared to take this hormone therapy or not? And the fact that I said yes probably they didn’t go any further with it. If I’d have said no I don’t want it may be then it wouldve been suggested that I went on to do chemotherapy but that wasn’t suggested because I said, ‘Yes I’m quite happy to have the hormone treatment’, despite the fact that I’d heard horrendous stories about the side-effects. And there are side-effects which are not very, are not very easy but…

Yes well ten years ago I started having problems passing urine and therefore I went to the doctors and arrangements were made and I had a TURPS regarding the prostate gland. And I was under the impression that I’d had a full prostatectomy, it was my fault I hadn’t taken much notice, so ten years afterwards when I started having problems, waterworks problems again I didn’t take a lot, I thought, Oh, this is just old age, it can’t be my prostate because I’ve had it removed. But then I started to pass blood so I took a sample of the urine to the doctor and he immediately, to my GP and he immediately had me admitted to the local hospital. And that’s when on admission they did a blood test. Now they didn’t tell me that they were doing a PSA, I didn’t even know what that was. They did a PSA test on the blood and found that my PSA was very much higher than it should have been, they didn’t tell me how much higher and if they did I’ve forgotten but they said it was very high and then they warned me that it did look very likely that this was prostate cancer. ‘How can I have prostate cancer, I haven’t got a prostate?’ ‘Oh yes, you have. And then I realised that I hadn’t had it removed. So I’d left it too late really and the tumour was quite well established. So then having had a biopsy then to confirm the fact that it was a tumour then I was offered the opportunity of having treatment which I took which was hormone treatment to start with and that’s what I’m still on the hormone treatment.

For people that don’t know what that is can you explain a little bit what it [a TURP] is?

Yes from the bladder to the outlet the, there is this tube that takes the urine and it has to go through the prostate gland. Now if the prostate gland it becomes, as it does with most elderly men, begins to enlarge to it traps the outlet, consequently it’s very hard then for an elderly person to pass urine. So it’s a very common thing to have this, what they call a TURPS, it’s like a rebore and they bore the hole through the prostate gland and that allows then a freedom of passing water, passing urine. And that’s what the TURPS is. I don’t quite understands what TURPS means but…

Trans-urethral resection.

Is it okay yes [laughs].

And how long were you in hospital for that operation?

Five days, yeah I went in on the Thursday and I was out on the Sunday.

Do you want to say a little bit more about the operation, can you remember?

Yeah they just did the test on the Friday, ran various you know blood pressure, blood tests and so on and then on the, on the Saturday I went into, into surgery and I was offered the opportunity of having either a local anaesthetic or a general, so I opted for the local anaesthetic which was that epidural is it called in, yeah and just went dead from the waist downwards. And I was in surgery for about half an hour and chatting to the, the what’s the man, anaesthetist just chatting generally because I didn’t want to know what was going on. And then came out and had, when I came back into the ward I had a blood pressure machine fixed to me, I also I had a catheter. These were removed the day afterwards and then the day after that I was discharged from hospital. I had to be very careful, no driving for three weeks, but I was okay. Healed very quickly and my waterworks problems cleared up.

So after that you found it much easier to pass urine?

Oh yes, yes until about ten years later when it started all over again. And that was the mistake I made was that it could happen again, I thought that’s it, it’s finished, I don’t have any more problems. But I did of course.