Akin Akintayo: Men's things

Insist and be insistent

Some encounters with the medical establishment can be unbelievably sublime and others exhibit inertia and obduracy, you might find pulling teeth a greater pleasure to enjoy. Here I was trying to get a sick note that I was told was easily obtainable and assured would be ready on Monday only to meet with a bureaucratic reluctance to fulfil what clearly everyone concerned knows is needed.

As with these things, I insisted against their prevarication, eventually someone cottoned on the idea that I was here for new excuses or postponements, something had to be done and so they sought out a late shift doctor and somehow found a stache of ‘Statement of Fitness for Work’ forms to be annotated and initialled by the doctor.

Their first attempt was clumsy, signing me totally off activities and the hospital stamp was upside-down. My reaction brought a reconsideration, and they did it properly with the caveats I wanted. It was an easy enough job with the will and opportunity to do it, hardly an encumbrance, this is a hospital, for crying out loud.

Just that spike is all you need

As I was chatting to a doctor, I also felt I could ask about the last two blood tests conducted a fortnight before my first radiotherapy session, my glimpse of the blood form indicated both the Prostate-antigen specific (PSA) and testosterone levels. I could not find the results anywhere as they were not communicated to my GP.

My PSA had fallen to within normal levels and testosterone was reading levels on the low side of the normal range. There must have been some other indicators in earlier blood tests to suggest I did not need hormone therapy before radiotherapy as testosterone has never been in the cachet of tests I have done before.

If I had not unilaterally pursued the need to recalibrate readings from my blood tests in February towards remediation by intervention, we would never have been on this track to discover prostate cancer and it might have been seething and growing undercover, but for that spike in my PSA in March that forced an investigation.

Do the graft on your bloodwork

It is no doubt incumbent that anyone with a modicum of literacy must take immediate interest and seek to understand what the results of blood tests are whether they fall in the normal ranges for your demographic and where they do not, ask questions and be unrelenting until this is explained in the simplest of terms. Err towards interventionism than otherwise, cancer is not something you wait and see grow like a wild weed in your body.

Demand answers and seek a second or even third opinion, speak with experts and learn all you can to be sure you are getting the best treatment towards the most beneficial outcomes. If you must go private and have the means to do so, do not count the cost and end up paying a costlier price.

The goal is the best outcomes

It took 7 months to get from my first request for a blood test to where the prostate cancer is being effectively treated with radiotherapy. I will cover in more detail sometime in the future, why I opted for radical radiotherapy over a radical prostatectomy. It was about the post-treatment quality of life more than anything else.

If anything, and for about 15 years, I have learnt and understood that your biggest advocate for the best outcomes when engaging the medical community is you, your voice, your initiative, your instigation, and your relentlessness. You are the centre of your diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic options. Remember, it is always your body first before it is their Guinea pig, that premise is non-negotiable.

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