The Day A Round Of Golf Saved My Dad’s Life And What It Means For You
Sometimes the universe works in funny ways.
In Never Stop Learning this week I will be covering the following 1-2-3:
One Big Thing - The Day A Round Of Golf Saved My Dad’s Life And What It Means For You
Two Recommendations - A book you really need to read if you want to write well online and a video on procrastination
My Top 3 articles of the week
One Big Thing: The Day A Round Of Golf Saved My Dad’s Life And What It Means For You
We pick up this story in Autumn 2022.
Little did we know that one simple action by the new captain at my Dad’s golf club would ultimately save his life.
In essence this doesn’t really have anything to do with golf but it’s a story about making opportunities for others and taking them yourself. You must take control of your health.
Each year the captain must identify a charity that various events will raise funds for during the year. This year, the captain chose Prostate Cancer UK.
The stats are stark but it’s one of those cancers that you want to know about. The earlier you catch it the greater your chance of survival and the less invasive the treatment is.
1 in 8 men will develop prostate cancer
We don’t talk enough about cancer.
It’s a big scary word because of that. The thing is, especially as children, we only hear about cancer when it causes serious illness and tragically sometimes the death of a friend or loved one. It’s a brutal and unforgiving disease.
But many people do develop cancer, get treatment and recover to live out their lives. We often don’t hear about these stories. And, because we disproportionately hear about the serious cases we can develop a distorted view of cancer itself.
We are often left thinking it’s a death sentence.
This feeling can leave us reticent to find out whether that lump or strange feeling is serious. This can then lead to later diagnosis and worse outcomes.
So, in this spirit I’m sharing a good news cancer story.
A story of early detection, rapid treatment and quick recovery.
It all started in the 18 green
It was a pretty normal day at the club. The Wednesday afternoon group were finishing their round. The weather was being and breezy. It was early October after all.
Putting out and shaking hands as normal. They turned to the club house where they were greeted by the new club captain with an offer.
“When you’ve changed your shoes we have someone in the bar you might choose to visit.”
It was a nurse. A small sample of blood was all that was needed. They were undertaking PSA tests. A large majority of those took up the offer. Maybe it was peer pressure. Maybe it was something they were all meaning to have tested by just hadn’t go round it it.
Anyway, it worked.
Two weeks later my Dad had a call from the doctors. “Can you book an appointment please. We need to discuss your PSA test.”
Oh.
His levels were 5 times over the healthy reading for his age. This probably meant it was prostate cancer but these tests can give false positives. That’s why the NHS don’t test as a matter of course.
Further testing with scans and a biopsy confirmed it. Cancer. That scary word.
But it was caught early. He’d probably had it for about a year.
And, because they caught it early treatment was straightforward with no surgery needed and six months later he was officially in remission.
I wanted to tell this story for two reasons.
If you get tested and catch some cancers early, treatment can be straightforward. You want to know. You really do.
People can recover from cancer. It doesn’t need to be a death sentence. Science is moving on fast in many areas.
So to round off let’s have a look at some of the symptoms you might want to look out for although please note that many early stage cancers do not have symptoms at all. Hence the need to test.
Symptoms of prostate cancer can include:
needing to pee more frequently, often during the night
needing to rush to the toilet
difficulty in starting to pee (hesitancy)
straining or taking a long time while peeing
weak flow
feeling that your bladder has not emptied fully
blood in urine or semen
And there are some factors that can increase your risk too:
The chances of developing prostate cancer increase as you get older. Most cases develop in men aged 50 or older.
For reasons not yet understood, prostate cancer is more common in black men and less common in Asian men.
Men whose father or brother were affected by prostate cancer are at slightly increased risk themselves.
Recent research also suggests that obesity increases the risk of prostate cancer.
In short. Get yourself tested or encourage your partner to.
I hope this was useful.
Two Recommendations - what to consume this week
1. The Art and Business of Online Writing
Must read book from
. If you want to be serious about writing online this is a great place to start. From tips on where and what to post to post structure and writing that all important (non-click baity) headline. Buy now. (not an affiliate link).
2. Avoiding Work?
We’ve all been there. You know what to do but you just cant get your mind and body to do it. Here’s why….
Top 3 articles of the week
Finding great articles on Substack can be difficult. Fear not, I have been digging deep into the discovery areas of the platform so you don’t have to.
Here are my top three posts to read this week:
I shared this on Notes earlier this week. For those considering how you can improve your Substack Welcome emails this is a great guide.
A pet hate of mine. Would you sit in a meeting at work and hide under the table?
by
Extreme weather has been all over the news but how bad is it in reality. I love the objective stats led view that Hannah takes here.
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If you missed last week’s post:
6 Actions To Ensure You Thrive As A Leader (while also avoiding burnout in the process)
Or this one from the archive:
My first SIX Months on Substack: The Growth Story So Far
Glad to hear your dad survived this. Thanks for sharing a hopeful and positive cancer story.
Such good news that your dad was diagnosed so early. It is great that men’s health and risks of prostate cancer are being highlighted.