Who am I and why am I writing this?


Hi - I'm a 52 year old man who has prostate cancer. There, I've said it. I have been diagnosed what has been described by some as 'a cancer more people die with than from' or 'the cancer you want to get if you have to have cancer' and by others as 'the second  most common cancer and sixth most common cause of death among men worldwide'. It's a complicated and scary position to be in. The plan behind this blog is essentially to journal my experiences, thoughts, hopes and fears and (because this is the 21st century) to post my musings on line in the hope that it may help someone else at a later date. Assuming anyone ever looks at this because with the flood of information out there - well, why woud you? 

A little bit about me and then I'll post this first entry and get it out there. My name is Mike - I'll leave it at that for privacy reasons (such as they are on the internet!) and I won't name any other names when I write. I'm reasonably active and ride bikes fairly regularly, although I had a bad fall last year and am still recovering from the shoulder & knee damage. I have a relatively healthy diet but have a tendancy to drink too much - easy to do when you're a homebrewer. I live with and adore my beautiful wife and we don't have kids. I work for myself as an IT consultant specialising in the use of a specific Construction-orientated accounting system, which is as exciting as it sounds. I'm not a medical professional but I do google a lot. 

Over the next few posts I'll try to summarise what I understand about what is growing inside me, run through my medical chronology so far, discuss what the plan is and why I decided on that course of action, cover off some of the alternatives and generally ramble on in an attempt to make myself feel better and hopefully pass on some tips to anyone reading this. And I'll keep posting as I go through surgery (spoiler alert!) and the recovery process, hopefully wrapping up in a happy place. But that is ahead of me for now.    

Cheers - Mike  

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