Men don’t like to talk about their health. We are experts at ignoring symptoms just in case there’s something wrong. After all, what’s the point in looking for trouble, it’ll find you soon enough.
We can easily explain away a pain or an ache. It was the food we ate yesterday, the change in the weather or the bad nights’ sleep. It’ll be gone in a few days and we’ll be back to normal.
We have an explanation for everything. When we’re bleeding into the toilet, it’s because we brushed our teeth with too much enthusiasm, that’s all. The excruciating pain in the chest is only a slight touch of indigestion. The football size lump on the side of the head is nothing, probably just a large pimple. Ignore it and it will go away.
Strangely enough, that tactic doesn’t always work. There is no logic to that reasoning because if something is wrong then you need to find out and the earlier you find out, the better. The longer you ignore the symptoms, the harder the solution is going to be, so it makes perfect sense to be proactive with your health.
I get my blood checked annually. It only takes a couple of miniutes to have the sample taken and then it’s sent away to be tested and a week later the results are back. That blood sample can tell a lot about the state of your innards.
That’s what I did recently and I thought no more about it. A week later, I got a phone call from the nurse who told me that PSA reading was high which could indicate a problem with my prostate.
I was surprised because I didn’t have any of the recognised symptoms. But, according to the Irish Cancer Society, early prostate cancer doesn’t normally cause any symptoms. Prostate cancer usually only causes symptoms when it has grown large enough to press on the tube that drains urine. It restricts the flow, a bit like putting your foot on the garden hose.
Having prostate urinary symptoms can be a sign of prostate cancer but more often they are caused by a harmless enlargement of the prostate, which is common as you get older. Some of the signs include, a slow flow of urine, trouble starting or stopping the flow, passing urine more often, especially at night, pain when passing urine, blood in the urine or semen or a feeling of not emptying your bladder fully.
ICS advises you to visit your GP if you have any worries or if you have any of these symptoms so that they can be discussed and assessed. Most prostate cancers are found early, many are slow growing, and symptoms may not happen for many years if they happen at all. Remember that men with early prostate cancer are unlikely to have any symptoms.
I didn’t know that. I thought that there should be some signal if there was a problem so, I was surprised with that news. Usually, the nurse would ring to tell me that the results were back and everything’s fine and see you next year. Now it was starting to look as if somebody had changed the rules here but forgot to tell me. She had forgotten her lines and was introducing something new into the conversation.
She was telling me that I needed to have a further examination of my prostate to see what the issue was. She said the first step in the process would be a DRE and she scheduled that for the following week. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have asked what this DRE business was all about but too late for that now. The cat was well and truly out of that particular bag.
DRE stands for digital rectal examination. In plain English, that means having a finger inserted in a place that wasn’t intended for fingers. This allows for a physical inspection of the infamous prostate gland. It didn’t sound very inviting.
I spent the rest of that week in a state of panic. Worrying about what they were going to find was one thing but the thought of this DRE sent me into a spin. I couldn’t understand how in 2017, surrounded by modern science and technology, we still have this primitive form of examination. I was convinced that there had to be a more humane method.
The other concern I had was that my GP is also a friend of mine. I have been attending his surgery for over forty years. What he was about to do could have drastic implications for our future relationship. How could we ever look each other in the eye again? The only solution would be for me to move to another town or maybe even leave the country.
In any event, the day arrived and I duly presented myself. He’s a knowledgeable guy so I had hoped that he would have a new and less invasive way of carrying out this test. While I was waiting for him to pull a rabbit out of the hat though, I saw him reach for his surgical gloves. There would be no rabbit making an appearance today.
He did what he needed to do and it was over in a couple of miniutes. It was nothing like I had imagined and it was over so quickly that I was giving out to myself for worrying about it. He didn’t find anything to cause any concern and that brought some relief too.
As a new expert in the field of DRE, I have some advice for anyone worrying about their prostate. Go and have it checked. If you’re putting it off because of a fear of having this procedure carried out, then you’re as foolish as I was.