Lindsay Hawthorn is a Bulk Cement Tanker Driver at our Tilbury depot.
He has recently come through Prostate Cancer and wanted to share his story, in the hope that it might prompt our male colleagues to get themselves checked.
Words by Lindsay Hawthorn…..
I have a bit of a story to tell, but please take the time to read it, it just might save your life!
Back in the summer of 2021 I started to find myself waking up in the early hours needing to go to the toilet, sometimes feeling the need but finding myself unable to, a minor annoyance, but nothing to seriously worry about, and anyway the COVID pandemic was in full swing and it was very difficult to get an appointment with a GP.
One day at the end of August 2021 I took a train up to London for a day out and as I sat down I felt a dull ache right at the base of my spine. I thought for the first time that it might be something that needs looking at so I called my doctor. To my surprise, after explaining my symptoms, he gave me a face-to-face consultation the next day and sent me for an urgent PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) blood test. He called me the next day with the result. A normal PSA count would be somewhere between 3.5 and 4.5, mine was 181, and I was given an immediate urgent referral to the Oncology department at the local hospital.
It was the first week of September 2021 when I went for an MRA scan which showed that I had an aggressive and metastatic (i.e. spread to other parts of my body) Prostate Cancer which, if left untreated, would end my life within two to three years.
As you can imagine, something of a shock, as apart from peeing I had virtually no symptoms at all. Then came the biopsy – one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life – which confirmed the scan results. I was immediately given a hormone injection that suppresses the male hormone, testosterone, which the cancer needs to grow. It was explained to me that in reality I had one chance of survival, radical chemotherapy, but even that may or may not work.
All this time I felt absolutely fine and was still working normally. It was a surreal experience, like living in a weird dream. I remember telling my line manager at the time that there was no good news, so we’d just have to live with the bad. I’m not sure he believed me at first but then I could hardly believe it myself. Then, of course, I had to tell my family, this was by far the worst experience in my entire life.
On 4th February 2022, two days after my 65th birthday, I had my first dose of chemotherapy. I was scheduled to have six doses with two weeks in between each dose, and after the first I thought it would be a doddle, a walk in the park, but I was wrong. The toxicity increases dose by dose and after the third I was feeling seriously ill and was admitted to hospital where a blood test showed that my white cell count was 0.1, meaning I had no functioning immune system and without urgent treatment would be dead within a day or two. I was kept in an isolation chamber designed for Aids patients, and pumped full of powerful antibiotics.
Luckily I recovered and was well enough to have the third dose at the end of March and the fourth in April, but went rapidly downhill again, prompting my Oncologist to cancel the last two doses, saying that it was too dangerous and would not achieve much more than it had already. During this time, although I was gravely ill, my PSA count dropped steadily, first to 84 then 50, then down to 21, and the Oncologist was very happy with my progress.
As the effects of the chemo started to wear off I rapidly started feeling human again, the extreme exhaustion, hair loss, sores and mouth ulcers, nasty tastes and loss of smell, although my blood counts remain on the low side to this day, I was coming alive again!
In the last week of July 2022, after postponing it for a week because of the heat wave we were having at the time, I returned to work, going out with other drivers at first and then after two weeks out on my own again, it was great to be back!
I had another PSA test on 18th August and on the 19th, a day I will never forget, as I was setting up to make a delivery at the Cemex plant in Kettering, my Oncologist called with the results of my blood test. My PSA had dropped to six…SIX!!!, only 1.5 above normal!!!, in his words, ‘amazing, bordering on the miraculous’!! I was amazed and overwhelmed and as I posted on my Facebook page at the time, “I’d smashed it!!” I may not have won the war, but I’ve sure as hell won this battle!
The cancer cells have spread again but so far only to my bones, not great, but I’m told they’ll take so long to do any real damage it’s not something I need to worry about. I take every new day as a joy, knowing this coming new year will not be my last, being able to look my relatives and friends in the eyes again, postponing my own funeral, every chore has become a breeze, and at work I’m now almost obscenely cheerful every day!
So, if you see me about, please don’t be offended by my relentless good humour, just remember this, the person you are seeing is Mr Braveface, Mr Never Say Die, what you won’t see is the once fit man literally crawling on hands and knees to get from one room to another, the endless sleepless nights staring numbly into the dark abyss, showing a good friend where you want them to scatter your ashes, the anguished looks from my relatives and friends, and my daughters nervous breakdown from which she still struggles to recover. You won’t see any of that, and hopefully never will experience it yourself.
One in ten men will have prostate problems of one kind or another in their lifetime, for black men it’s one in eight, so I urge you, all of you of a certain age (55 or over), to get a PSA test, it’s just a simple blood test. I didn’t find it early enough, I never took the test and if my story is not enough to persuade you just think of this. I’ll need to take the hormone injections for the rest of my life, without them I will die.
It needn’t be like that for you, all you have to do is get it checked.