Adventures with prostate cancer

What’s the Jennride? Jenn Hill was a legend amongst mountain bikers. She was a prolific rider, having completed some of the world’s toughest rides. Jenn wrote for Singletrack magazine and was an inspiration to many; she successfully encouraged women to get involved with cycling and was loved by everyone who met her. Tragically, lung cancer was to claim Jenn’s young life in 2015. Rich, the local postie and all-round decent fella from Staveley, began organising Jennrides. These rides keep Jenn’s…

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I’m trying to promote my blog so as to spread awareness of prostate cancer and, hopefully, to inspire others. I’m finding it difficult to let people know when I’ve posted something… So, please please could I have YOUR email address so that I can let YOU know about updates. I will never share anyone’s email address. Please send me an email to: adventureswithprostatecancer@gmail.com so that I can add you to my private mailing list. And spread the word… Share the…

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Sam and I try to meet up with our great friends, Jean-Michelle and Hillary, every few months or so. We live up north; they live down south, so for this meet-up we had decided to rent a house in Malvern Wells; an area that none of us had explored before. Encouraged by the success of my last adventure, I decided to cycle the 250km to the house that would be our home for 3 days. Marple to Ludlow to Malvern…

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I have a vague plan to try and have at least one adventure each month. This was January’s… I struggle with fatigue. I usually sleep for about 12 out of 24 hours and feel tired for most of the time. Over the last year or so, I have learnt that I can ignore this creeping weariness for a few hours… but what would happen if I ignored it for longer? What if I continued to push for a couple of…

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It’s been a good month from my perspective; yeah, the weather has been a bit wet and it’s not been cold enough, but I’ve carried on increasing my fitness, eating the right foods, losing a little more weight and generally feeling alright. Enjoying life even… what a change; I used to hate the dark months! No real changes on the cancer front for February: I’m still experiencing fatigue, hot-flushes and brain-fog, although I’m dealing with these problems much better and…

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Some of you may have read my previous blog. I started it in 2022 to record and share my experiences following my diagnosis of Stage 4 prostate cancer. Things were going so well, but then the wheels fell off. I became so completely exhausted, in pain and desperate during the treatment that I needed to focus all my energy on getting through each day. This generally meant consuming loads of painkillers, considering whether I wanted to carry on, and trying…

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2023 is certainly missing from this blog, for now, but it’s the year where I faced the lowest points of my life and also enjoyed some of the best times. From the fatigue and pain caused by the chemotherapy; the nausea and incontinence of radiotherapy, being almost unable to get out of bed owing to crippling neuropathy and crushing depression, to a sunshine filled day surrounded by family and great friends as my wife and I enjoyed our triple celebration….

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The posts below this banner were originally written in the days and weeks following my initial diagnosis of advanced prostate cancer (Mid to late 2022). I became quite ill during the later parts of this period, although I didn’t realise how ill at the time. Unfortunately, I drifted away from writing; survival had become more important! These posts will be archived under the “Cancer Life” tab.

And so we move on to the next chapter of my unwanted adventure. I am defining this as the phase where I go through the more “Heavy duty” treatment: basically, the chemotherapy and the radiotherapy. The chemotherapy consists of 6 cycles. Each of these will last for approximately 3 weeks. Then there will probably be a 4-6 week break before we begin the 20 sessions of radiotherapy. I think that means the heavy duty treatment will take until April of…

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I’d really wanted to draw things together before I moved on to the next chapter of this adventure however, as is often such in life, things got in the way, I became allergic to keyboards, I ran out of time, etc, etc. I now find myself writing this under the fog of chemo… but the chemo story belongs in the next chapter! So, what’s been going on? Why have I been too busy to write? As throughout July and August,…

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