Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

You may or may not be aware that I was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer nearly 18 months ago. What began with a routine Full Health Screening (Well-Man) through Paycare, soon became an investigation and tests, and a subsequent Prostate Cancer diagnosis. Luckily for me and my family I caught it early enough for it not to have spread to other organs in my body and for now I’m on what’s called ‘active surveillance’ which is basically a way of monitoring localised prostate cancer through half yearly blood checks and 18 month MRI scans, with the aim of avoiding or delaying unnecessary treatment in the future.

Us blokes don’t like doing this sort of thing but getting checked out is easy – just make an appointment with your GP – its as simple as that. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. And if you’re over 50, or you’re Black, or you have a family history of the disease, then your risk is even higher.

But the earlier you find it, the easier it is to treat. Your first step is to get yourself checked out. This is the scary bit – if I hadn’t have been checked out, I wouldn’t have known that I had it – nothing in my life has changed – I still do everything that I did before the diagnosis – it’s the mental side that I have to deal with and I’m absolutely fine with it – I’m comfortable with knowing about it and happy to talk to anyone who wants to listen, and even joke about it.

I told all closest friends and family and advised them to get checked out – they all have and they have told their friends, and so on and in a few cases some of them have been diagnosed with prostate cancer too – not great but at least they know and can begin treatment.

So, on the back of this, you may know that I’m a keen mountain biker / trail rider. At the beginning of March I started cycling to work and back (20 miles / day) which I do regularly weather permitting, but after a couple of weeks this soon turned into a mission and by the end of March (today) I will have completed 520 miles in 4 weeks. I’d like to try and do it again in April with the aim of completing another 500 miles to take it up to 1000 miles over the 2 months, but give something back, raise a bit of awareness and do it for a worthwhile cause. So I have set up a Just Giving page with the aim of raising money for PROSTATE CANCER UK.

I hope this has provoked a few thoughts amongst you – you men go and get yourselves checked out, and you ladies our there with male partners, dads, uncles etc give them a bit of a nudge too and encourage them to go and get checked out 😊