PSA Test
Marc and I agreed early on that given Kevins experience (if you haven’t read Kevin’s story you really should!) and the fact that we are raising money for Prostate Cancer and we are both in the “higher risk” age group we MUST both get PSA tests done and get them done soon. Dan is of course 20 years younger than us so his prostate is barely out of short trousers and has not even had a chance to think about its hope dreams and aspirations for the future let alone whether at some point it may wish to go all “insider threat” on him and so we agreed the test was pretty much redundant for him.
If anyone out there is any doubt how easy and straightforward it is to actually get a PSA test done, doubt no longer…..it was genuinely this simple -
Phone the surgery and say “I would like a PSA blood test please”
Collect the pathology paperwork from reception. In my case I received a text telling me it was ready within an hour!
Stick your headphones on and wait for about 20 mins (less than half an episode of Ozarks as it turns out).
Get your blood taken by the Nurse Vampire
Receive a text from the surgery with the results the following day.
No fuss, no bother, minimal human interaction and so minimal opportunity to feel awkward or embarrassed (not that there is any reason to feel embarrassed but this is me we are talking about after all so any social interaction has potential!) save sitting in the waiting room with the masses of the great unwell (and seemingly unwashed in some cases) …..honestly it was effortless.
It wasn’t until I was wending my way back home that I even gave things a second thought and even then that second thought was “Ok so worst case scenario the test comes back with a higher than expected PSA level but it is still absolutely better to know now than later and not only that, this is exactly the message that Prostate Cancer, Kevin and now Marc and I need to promote…..if you are male and over 40 get a PSA test!”
The following day the text from the GP read “Dear Mr White, I am delighted to inform you that you have the plump, pert, perky prostate of a 25 year old man and quite frankly you are a marvel of modern science. It is so extraordinary that we would very much like to interview you and your perfect little plum on BBC News tomorrow morning so you can tell us how you do it!”
The actual text read “Blood test result - Normal” which to be honest was no less exciting. A quick phone call to Marc (in hindsight I do now recognise it might seem a bit weird that I called Marc to talk about my prostate before I even told Jo but anyway!) to pass on the good news and he confirmed his results were also “normal”. I am not, you will be surprised to read, medically trained but I am pretty certain there are degrees of “normal” when it comes to PSA tests and prostates and so I imagine Marcs (not that I spend much time imagining Marcs prostate you understand) to be rather more prune like than plum.
Those of you who know me, and even those that don’t, will know that I am by nature a shy, modest, nay humble soul and so the label “inspiration” weighs oh so heavily on my meek and mild mannered shoulders ……but to hell with it….YOU SHOULD BE INSPIRED! GO AND GET YOUR PSA TEST DONE RIGHT NOW!
PS …oh, and don’t forget to donate please!
PPS….it is surprisingly difficult to write the word “prostate” so many times in one piece when autocorrect wants to change it everytime to “prostrate” ….which is I understand something else entirely.