This is the same story that I have been telling recently, but I believe it is important enough to repeat it again. I think we could never say it too much! The Irish Cancer Society funded a survey called PRO-ACT. 1,150 prostate cancer patients and their partners. Not just patients. Partners in the same survey, which almost never happens. 40% said they were not prepared for what treatment did to their sexual function. 60% said it was worse or much worse than they expected. The vast majority said a longer or clearer discussion with their medical team would have helped. One of the chief investigators is Martin Sweeney, who has prostate cancer himself. He was diagnosed at 49. Devastated, in his own word. He says he made a knee-jerk decision on a radical procedure, and he has lived with the effects on his sexual function, his urinary control and his mental health ever since. His relationship with his partner changed. They are still together, and he says they are better and stronger than ever. The hardest stretch was the first six months to a year. He says the outstanding reason men gave for being underprepared was that their clinician and their medical team did not give them enough information. Then Dr Claire Kilty from the Irish Cancer Society said the line I keep coming back to. When people are affected by this after treatment, there is a hesitancy to talk about it - with their partners, with their family members, and with their healthcare professionals. All three. Not one. Three. That is our whole thing, here at Prostate Paladin - sitting inside somebody else's data. I am not a doctor and I am not telling anyone what to choose. But if you are anywhere near a treatment decision, or someone you love is, the move is the same. Slow it down by a week and ask what it will do to your life, not only what it will do to the cancer. Then ask who you talk to when it does. So here is my question for the room, and I would rather have honest answers than tidy ones. Were you prepared? Did anybody actually sit you down and tell you what would change afterwards - or did you find out on your own?

Not going to the doctor is often seen as a badge of honour. Chris Kamara admits he went about twenty years without seeing a doctor and thought it made him a hero. A routine blood test eventually flagged his PSA - thankfully not cancer - and next month he runs the Great North Run at 68. Australia has just changed its rules so the doctor raises the test with men from 50, instead of sitting there waiting for the man to find the words. For me it was my friend at the airport who pointed out to me that I might have a prostate problem. Sometimes that is all it takes - one person to break the ice and bring it up. Awareness is key - which is what Prostate Paladin has been saying all along. Use the Kamara story on the men in your life this week. Ask one of them when he last had his PSA checked. It is one blood test, and it removes a mountain of worry. https://www.skool.com/prostate-paladin-4886/about