Geoff Chats With Kent Cricket About Men’s Health

One of our patients, Geoff, speaks with Kent Cricket players Darren Stevens and Nathan Gilchrist about men’s health.

The discussion centres around the two most common cancers among men; prostate and testicular cancer, and the importance of getting yourself checked early. The group also talk about mental health and why it’s important to seek help if you need it. Don’t forget to reach out to friends and family to see if they’re okay too.

We hope that by raising awareness more men will seek help, and prevent unnecessary deaths.

Geoff: “I’m here as a previous sufferer with prostate cancer and like a lot of cancer sufferers will say you never think that you’ve got cancer. You never believe that it’s you you know. After you have that diagnosis it’s a difficult thing to get your head around you know, because functionally you feel fine you don’t feel that there’s anything really gone wrong and nothing changes from the date that you get diagnosed.”

“You know you’re the same person after diagnosis as you are before the diagnosis, but I think in my case the prostate issues were over a long period of time and fortunately I had the time to get that treatment and to have the surgery before it was too late effectively.”

“So I think that’s the key certainly with prostate cancer is that it’s a slow creeping thing and in your head you believe that it’s going to be okay because I don’t feel that much different than I did a week ago or a day ago or a month ago, whereas in actual fact you are getting progressively worse with the symptoms that you have.”

Darren: “Did that come on gradually? How did it all come about?”

Geoff: “I started to have pain with my you know just going to the bathroom, It was painful.”

“I went to see the specialist, doctor first and then specialist through KIMS Hospital, and through a fairly rigid set of tests to ultimately have the diagnosis that it was in fact prostate cancer, and strangely enough it was two years ago in November… November the 5th of all days to remember that I had the surgery. I’ll never forget that day of course.”

Now I have a ‘I’m clear of the cancer’ on a three monthly check but once your awareness is of the illness you find out how many other people that how many other men that you know not of my age but younger than me that have actually got symptoms or indeed sadly have left it too late and the cancer has then spread to the bones and livers.”

“Get a PSA test, I mean that’s not 100% but it’ll certainly give a pretty good indication. I don’t think men are too worried about talking about, you know, going to the bathroom too frequently or getting up through the night, or a couple too many last night. So I was up two or three times. Well that might not be the reason why you’re up two or three times and uh it’s you know making that awareness does just definitely help.”

Darren: “You know for us now we’ll go back to the change room tomorrow and we’ll talk about this and it will be a communication around the lads so I think, you know, in future, you know, if anybody is struggling with certain things or, you know, we’ve got one of the lads who talks about it every day but he goes to the toilet three or four times a night but you know it might be something that he might do well. Actually maybe I need a checkup.”

Nathan: “In general I’ll be quite lucky with our changing room that we’ve got quite a tight knit group of players and we always tend to look after each other and ask how each other is doing. So I think we’re lucky in that respect.”

Darren: “We look out for each other and I think that’s why we’re starting to become a successful side. It’s because of little things like that where we do care for each other and, we want everybody to be healthy and fit and so we can go out and perform on the pitch.”
Geoff: “It’s either genetic or it’s you know it’s just in the stars almost so it’s interesting speaking to people who are at the peak of their fitness and thinking what can I do to prevent it. In some cases you can’t, all you can do is to get those checks and get the treatment that’s needed.”

“You know it doesn’t seem to have any barriers on fitness, something like this which is you know if it’s lung cancer then and you smoke heavily then there’s a fair chance there’s a link to it.”

Nathan: “Maybe it’s a bit naïve of me but I’m only 21 so I don’t think it’ll even come into my mind at the moment but hearing your story and like Darren said there I think he’ll definitely open up my mind to making sure that I’m all safe and getting regular checks over the next few years because I obviously don’t think anyone would want to be in a position where they get told the bad news. So if I can stop it early or anyone can stop it early then I think that’s the best way to do it.”

Darren: “You know I’m 45 now and actually I should be looking at stuff like this but I haven’t. It makes me feel a little bad about it but I think, you know, I’m sure after this and obviously speaking to Geoff about his story I’ll be looking to actually get myself checked.”