Meet Dave
Dave was 48 when a routine conversation with his diabetes nurse led to tests and an unexpected prostate cancer diagnosis.
He shares the impact cancer and treatment have had on his farming life, why travelling long distances for specialist care has been difficult, and how his experience now helps him support other farmers through the Farming Community Network.
Before my cancer diagnosis
“It’s a struggle to remember back to those days before the diagnosis. I was busy beef and sheep farming in North Devon.
“I’d always struggled with bits of my health, mainly being type 2 diabetic, diagnosed over 25 years ago, now insulin dependent. I was constantly seeing the doctor, so I was in regular contact with healthcare people. I wasn’t the type that never saw the doctor or never sought advice.
“Things were pretty normal really. Just busy on the farm and getting on with life.”
My diagnosis came as a shock
“It was 2018, I was 48 at the time. I’d been seeing the diabetic nurse quite regularly about getting my blood sugar under control and she started me on some new tablets to try and help."
“I’d been on these tablets for six months and I went back for a review. I said, ‘It’s fine but these tablets are just making me go to the toilet more often. I’m finding I’m getting up a couple of times a night to go and have a pee.’
“She said, ‘That’s not a normal side effect of these tablets, so perhaps we’ll just run some bloods and see what’s going on.’
“It was her vigilance that picked it up. I had no inkling at the time, no family history of prostate cancer, no other real flags.”
The blood test showed that Dave had a raised PSA level.
“It came as a bit of a shock. I didn’t really know much about prostate cancer at the time. To me it was an old person’s disease and something that at my age wasn’t really a concern. I went back to the GP and had another test, he said, ‘I think I need to refer you.’ From there, you’re on the conveyor belt of tests, scans, biopsies.”
Dave remembers how difficult it was to believe this could be happening to him.
“I remember sitting in the hospital waiting for a biopsy and I think there were seven or eight men in the room all waiting with me and they were all in their 70s. I’m looking around thinking this is obviously some sort of mistake. I’m only 48, this can’t be right because I’m so young.”
I wasn't fully prepared for what treatment would mean
“At the time, you feel like a rabbit in the headlights. There’s so much going on and I think with hindsight, there were a lot of things I should have asked."
“You put your faith and trust in the healthcare system and you think, well, they know best. But there were quite a few things that came out of it that were a shock for me, certainly the nerve issue."
“That wasn’t even flagged up to me that that might be an issue, and that was quite a shock coming out of the prostatectomy operation and being told that it was non-nerve sparing and all the implications that that brings subsequently."
“The information was there, but probably not pushed quite enough. It’s still left for people to ask questions. I wasn’t fully prepared, but things are slowly getting better.”
I tried to protect my family
“I didn’t tell anyone who didn’t really need to know. Big mistake to try and put so much pressure on yourself. I didn’t tell my friends. We didn’t even tell my daughter until after the surgery. She was only 13 at the time."
“You think you’re doing the right thing by not telling them, you think you’re protecting them and saving them from the worry and heartache, but they know what’s going on. If I did it all again, I’d do it very differently.”
Dave says his experiences have also changed the way he talks about cancer with other people.
“I think people’s reaction to cancer, they don’t know how to react. That’s one of the things I’m finding working with the Farming Community Network, that if you’ve been through it, you understand it and know how to talk to people."
“You need to be positive but people generally don’t want sympathy.”
