I felt fine. I have prostate cancer. Please get checked

Most people who know me on LinkedIn know me through business, I talk about data, AI, Eden Smith, building businesses, our team, the occasional success and, probably far too many other things. 

I have never spoken about my health, but I'm going to make an exception. 

I have prostate cancer. 

Even writing those words feels strange. I'm sharing this not because I want sympathy - I really don't. I'm sharing it because I've somehow accumulated around 10,000 followers on here, and with that comes an opportunity, and this isn't a message just for the men in my network, it's for the people that love them too.

Even writing those words feels strange. I'm sharing this not because I want sympathy - I really don't. I'm sharing it because I've somehow accumulated around 10,000 followers on here, and with that comes an opportunity, and this isn't a message just for the men in my network, it's for the people that love them too. 

If posting this persuades even one man to speak to his GP - or one person reading this sends it to the man they love and says "Please, just get yourself checked" - then putting something this personal out there will have been worthwhile. 

The scary thing is, I felt fine, I had no symptoms and that's probably the most important part of this story. I wasn't walking around feeling seriously ill. There wasn't some dramatic moment when I knew something was wrong.

Life was just... life. The usual work, family, holidays, friends. The usual stresses and the usual laughs. 

What happened was, I went for my annual blood test / MOT type thing back in 2022 and had a standard PSA blood test. The result was just slightly raised, at 2.73, considered normal for a 48-year-old. Fast forward to 2024 and another MOT showed 3.76. This is considered above a normal range for a 50-year-old. It was rising. 

Further investigation was required so I was booked in for an MRI, which I had never had before. As someone who has avoided hospital all my life, this was quite alien to me. The MRI identified a small tumour that the doctors needed to look at. I entered the next stage which was to have a biopsy, and something referred to as “active surveillance”. The biopsy confirmed a very slow growing, stage 1 cancer, Gleason score 3+3 - I will explain a little more as things go on. 

As a patient on active surveillance, you have repeated blood tests and a yearly MRI. Unfortunately, in January this year, the MRI showed a small change requiring another biopsy. The biopsy results showed a small spread but also a change in the nature of the cancer itself, something that could be dangerous if left untreated. Gleason score 3+4 - stage 2. 

So suddenly, prostate cancer wasn't something that happened to somebody else, it was happening to me, and there is a moment when the word "cancer" changes everything. I don't think most people understand the weight of that word until somebody uses it about you. 

I'm a businessman. I'm used to problems - you assess the situation, look at the options, make a decision and crack on with it. But, cancer doesn't quite work like that because underneath all the sensible conversations about Gleason scores, PSA levels, scans and treatment options… there's another conversation going on in your head. 

I'm a husband, I'm a dad, I have Vick, Eden and Bodhi to love and look after. They are my priority and hence I must deal with this head on.

You think about holidays you haven't taken yet, birthdays, weddings - grandchildren one day maybe - and growing old with the person you love. 

All the completely ordinary things suddenly don't feel ordinary at all and that has probably been the biggest perspective shift for me. 

But here's the strange thing about prostate cancer, you can feel completely normal. I’ve never had any symptoms at all!

You can go to work, go out with your family, get to the gym, enjoy your holiday and sit in the pub with your mates having a beer - and meanwhile, something can quietly be happening inside your body. 

That's why I'm writing this. Most of us men are bloody terrible at managing this stuff.

We do all the things we think we are supposed to do round the house, spend time trying to fix things, make others happy, solve that problem etc and yet - when our own body gives us a warning or we just need to take more time over health - we seem to default to "It'll be fine." I know this because I'm one of those men. 

This is where, you my lovely network reading this can make a real difference. Sometimes the person who gets a man through the GP's door isn't the man himself. It's his wife, husband, partner, daughter, son, sister, brother or friend.

Someone who loves him enough to keep asking until he finally does something about it. 

If there's a man in your life, where this conversation matters, please have the conversation. Maybe he has a family history or is at higher risk or simply hasn't thought about prostate health before. He might roll his eyes. Tell you he's fine. Say he'll do it next week… just keep nagging him. 

Speak to the GP, understand your personal risk, ask whether a PSA blood test is appropriate, or just push for one if you're worried. 
 

It's important to say that the PSA test isn't a perfect cancer test, and a higher PSA doesn't automatically mean cancer. A PSA result on its own can't diagnose prostate cancer, but it can be an important piece of information that leads to further investigation. 

I promise you, I've discovered that dignity becomes considerably less important when you're talking about staying around for the people you love. 

I'm one of the fortunate ones, thankfully, mine is being monitored. I have options which have full cure rates of up to 96% and it hasn't spread anywhere. I am literally thanking my lucky stars, please be like me and go get it checked. There are lots of men who don't get that opportunity because it's discovered much later and hence treatment can be much more involved. 

So why tell 10,000 people something this personal?

Well, if a few hundred people read this, perhaps 50 mention it to somebody they care about, maybe ten men speak to their GP and one of those conversations discovers something that otherwise wouldn't have been found, just one, then that's enough for me. 



So, gentlemen, please remember one thing from this ridiculously long article: 

Don't wait until you feel ill to start thinking about your health, know your risk, have the conversation and if it's appropriate for you, have the PSA blood test. 

Share this post please, take care of yourselves - all of you. 

Jez x 

Read and learn more about Prostate Cancer Research.