I have check-ups every about four, about every months I think. And that’s been, you know they’re very good like about that. If I need anything I can ring them three Macmillan, I’ve three Macmillan nurses that were like on my case, I just ring them and I have any problems. Like when I had a couple of water infections and they got that sorted out for me. Not a lot, not a lot of help from my own GP, I thought you know, but they’ve been very helpful at [city], very helpful.

Do you have any other tests done when you visit the consultant?

No. I’ve had just how do you, how do you feel?’ and pressed and poked and that I’ve, I’ve had no scans or anything since.

I was told at first that I’d urinate from a different place altogether but the surgeon there managed to just do it so that I [hesitation] it comes out where, where it did before, which has been a lot easier for me. Because I couldn’t in my job I couldn’t sit down, to urinate because there’s no toilet facilities where I work. You know Id have to I’d have to walk half a mile and back, you know like. I take water tablets so I pass water about ten times in a morning. So [chuckles] by the time I did all that I might as well not bother.

Well like I say, it’s difficult, it’s not easy passing water where I am, you know. it’s alright if there’s proper toilets and you can take your trousers off that’s no problem but it’s just that if you can’t really go in urinals or like you would before and if you’re out and about and you’re bursting… it’s difficult because you’ve got to more or less to get undressed.

Apart, apart from perhaps a bit of a slower intro into it would have been better instead of just saying, you know, he were totally brutal the way I were told. They reckon it’s the best way of telling you. So, you don’t know. You know, it was a shock. I mean I were only there in my mind to be circumcised and to be told all at once that you’ve got cancer’ you know it were like being hit with a shovel at the time.

Well [hesitation] I were quite, I were quite scared really. Quite scared, but. That first time I ever went to cancer hospital you know, you’ve got a dread in your mind. If somebody says cancer’ you… think straight away you’re going to die within weeks don’t you. From what you say I mean it’s not like that but you’ve just got that, when somebody says to you that’s cancer’ you think oh no! like. It, it’s quite shocking then and you. I was worried at first definitely.

You know when I first started I was self employed, I had a garage of my own, a business, which I had to let go because you can’t be self employed and be ill, so I had to pack that in, which, which I loved, and get a job. You know, which is, I still don’t get sick pay where I work now but at least, you know you see when I had all these operations I, I used my holidays because, because I didn’t get sick pay, I mean you’ve still to live haven’t you know even if you’re ill. You know that’s a problem for anybody I think that’s ill… managing off what money you can get. And like I’d, I think both them operations I had I had to use my holidays, cancel my holidays and use my holiday entitlement so that I could get the operation. Because there were no healthcare, no health insurance where I worked you know, even though it’s a massive power station there’s no health care or owt like that.

So the financial side.?

Oh, there’s a big financial side to it, yeh, yeh. You know you’ve, you like just stop straight away, you’ve still VAT to pay and I had to wind my business up and accountants and this and that off money what I’d managed to save which I haven’t got now, like. We had to get a smaller, we had to get a smaller house and, we had quite a big house before and we had to get a smaller house and manage, you know.

So after about a fortnight I went to, it was a private hospital but they did NHS work, just, and I were, I was expecting, expecting at the worst, that I’d have a, what do they, what do they call it err total removal of the foreskin right, the circumcision, that was really what I was expecting. So I got, I got there about three o’clock in the afternoon and we just sat down like, a fancy place you know cup of tea and all. Next minute I was whisked in to see this the urologist consultant and he just felt at it and he said straight away you’ve got cancer. Like I was totally gobsmacked.

So what were your immediate thoughts and feelings?

Oh absolutely, absolutely gobsmacked really. I were, I was quite worried, I were quite worried at the time, but. Once, once I got to the main cancer hospital in [city] it were totally different then. I felt like I was being informed and being, I was on the right road, you know [hesitation]. Once I got into there I was, he were a professor and he was absolutely clued up you know and I really felt that everything was going to be alright then. I hope it is.

Well like I say, it’s difficult, it’s not easy passing water where I am, you know. It’s alright if there’s proper toilets and you can take your trousers off that’s no problem but it’s just that if you can’t really go in urinals like you would before and if you’re out and about and you’re bursting… it’s difficult because you’ve got to more or less to get undressed. That’s about the worst of it really. I did have a couple of water infections but they’ve gone now like, they were, they were quite bad.

And he said, We’ll do they oper… I’ll do’ what, I forget what they call it, when they cut a bit off ah, they’ll do a biopsy you see. So I hung about till half past seven at night in this hospital and expecting this biopsy. Next minute I was whisked in and I had my, half my penis removed totally, and by a local anaesthetic.