{"id":2032,"date":"2017-11-03T12:02:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-03T01:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=2032"},"modified":"2020-09-23T03:42:42","modified_gmt":"2020-09-22T17:12:42","slug":"2032","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2017\/11\/2032\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking a Punt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shavers down, time to hit the store for the best beard balm<\/a> you can find: it’s Movember. Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australian men, with\u00a03000 dying of it each year \u2013 more than the number of women who die of breast cancer. Turn the focus on men’s health with this excerpt from Peter Endersbee’s memoir,<\/em> Taking a Punt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anna accompanied me to the urologist for the biopsy results.\u00a0I was still clinging to the possibility it might be benign in spite of\u00a0the terrible PSA readings. When he came into the waiting room he\u00a0was wearing a stiff white coat that belied his humble open-faced\u00a0demeanour. He was tall and dark and handsome and younger than I\u2019d imagined. Early forties. Certainly not the battle-scarred\u00a0senior partner I\u2019d associated with his field of specialisation. He\u00a0seemed far too young to be playing God to a waiting room of old\u00a0and middle-aged men. We were shown chairs, and sat down.<\/p>\n

I could hardly bear to look at him. He smiled and praised me\u00a0for having taken myself off to Casualty after I\u2019d experienced the\u00a0very flu symptoms he\u2019d mentioned as an unlikely side effect of the\u00a0biopsy. He said I\u2019d done the right thing. His introductory gambit\u00a0had my hopes up. It would be downhill all the way and I\u2019d soon\u00a0be walking out scot-free.<\/p>\n

But after referring to more papers he looked me squarely\u00a0in the eye and said they\u2019d found carcinogenic cells from the\u00a0biopsy. The PSA result had been bad enough, but hearing that\u00a0I had prostate cancer was like being mentally winded, a feeling\u00a0of vertigo. I glanced out the window, the plane trees and clear\u00a0blue sky suddenly in a different world. I only half heard that my\u00a0Gleason score was a seven on a scale of one to ten. I was told the\u00a0Gleason was an indicator of how aggressive the cancer might be\u00a0based on an aggregate number from the biopsy samples, where\u00a0anything less than seven indicated a reasonable chance of a\u00a0good prognosis; anything more than seven did not. The surgeon\u00a0tried to reassure me that a seven was not so bad, at least it wasn\u2019t\u00a0an eight or a nine, which he had half expected, given my very high PSA. When I asked him what my chances were without <\/i>the\u00a0operation he replied, \u2018Five to ten years, taking into account your\u00a0readings and your age.\u2019<\/p>\n

As the first shock waves began to subside, I became aware of\u00a0Anna taking notes.<\/p>\n

On the way home we didn\u2019t say much. Even over cups of tea at\u00a0the kitchen table it hadn\u2019t sunk in.<\/p>\n

\u2018You\u2019re taking it remarkably well,\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n

\u2018What else can I do?\u2019 I was looking at the picture she\u2019d painted\u00a0on the teacup from which I was taking controlled sips, wishing\u00a0I\u2019d never answered the telephone that day. I clutched the soothing\u00a0ceramic vessel.<\/p>\n

\u2018I will support you in whatever you choose to do,\u2019 she said.\u00a0\u2018We\u2019re in this together.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Find out more about<\/em> Taking a Punt here<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shavers down, time to hit the store for the best beard balm you can find: it’s Movember. Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australian men, with\u00a03000 dying of it each year \u2013 more than the number of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[696,697,699,700,698,701],"class_list":["post-2032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-extract","tag-health","tag-mens-health","tag-movember","tag-peter-endersbee","tag-prostate-cancer","tag-taking-a-punt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s4v1Of-2032","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2032"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3938,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032\/revisions\/3938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}