I don’t think I’ll ever forget the day we were mooching about Inverness and came up with the idea of booking a cruise in a travel shop.
It was only meant to be a weekend away from Aberdeen, but our future travel plans were growing arms and legs.
I don’t mean a cruise around Loch Ness, by the way, as enchanting as that would have been; our intended destination was sunny-sailing the Mediterranean.
So we dillied and dallied at a pavement cafe in early September – it’s now almost the exact anniversary of this event – hastily doing our sums before deciding whether to put down a deposit on an extraordinarily expensive cabin with a walk-in wardrobe.
We’d never luxuriated in a walk-in wardrobe before, so oddly I think that was more of an attraction than sailing into Corfu, Venice and Dubrovnik.
Then an e-mail arrived which forced me to change course.
It was from my brother who had lived in Melbourne for years, telling me he was recovering from major surgery for prostate cancer. Suggesting I should get myself checked.
Without knowing I was embarking on a chilling voyage
Suddenly, without fully realising it at the time, I was embarking on a voyage with a possibly chilling destination.
A little research showed that brothers were three times more likely to follow suit and go down with the same thing in a prostate-cancer scenario.
I had an uneasy feeling that although my prostate was blissfully unaware of impending doom as it lay tucked up in the dark, my heart knew in which direction this was heading.
He was 58, I was 62 – it seemed so unfair.
Wasn’t this the sort of thing that only doddery old blokes in their 80s got?
Nothing of the sort, of course.
The medical investigation took longer than I anticipated: several months, in fact, partly because Christmas fell in the middle of it, but also due to my MRI scan going on the blink and having to go through it all again.
Thoughtfully, they postponed telling me the results so I could enjoy Christmas.
I passed the MRI with flying colours, but a more forensic biopsy which delved directly into the flesh told a different story.
On a wintry day in mid-February I was told I had early-stage prostate cancer.
I parked up 10 minutes later in Aberdeen and sat on a bench in Queen’s Road; my world caving in as the rest of the world passed me by.
But as the frightening process unfolded inexorably towards having my prostate removed, Good Samaritans came to my aid.
I don’t think I could have managed such a traumatic experience without their constant support; they were beside me every step of the way – and during the long years of recovery and screening afterwards to ensure it had gone away.
Always just a phone call away for reassurance; always a welcoming smile when I popped in to see them without needing to make an appointment.
It’s difficult to put a value on what they do in support of the surgeons – it’s priceless.
Which is why I am so sensitive and sympathetic towards all things prostate and Ucan whenever they are in the news.
Council’s decision to deny Ucan cash shows poor leadership
Such as the recent Aberdeen council decision to deny the charity cash to expand its patient-care services more rapidly.
It will make the investigation and diagnosis of urological cancers among thousands of patients in the north-east much faster in a one-stop-shop kind of way.
In my case, I would have appreciated this rather than being tormented by a sometimes irrational fear of the unknown as months passed during my initial diagnostic process.
Councillors did put a price on how much it was worth giving: precisely nothing, it seems.
At a time when so many families suffer daily anguish over NHS waiting lists this was obviously worthy of support from the local authority.
Forgive the painful prostate pun, but such a poor and unwise decision cuts through with the public.
This current council regime will be remembered for all the wrong things.
Raking in millions from their hated bus gates while snubbing a charity which touches the lives of so many will stick in the mind.
Where is the leadership and vision to realise that relatively small financial gestures of compassion like this have an instant positive impact on the quality of everyday lives?
Far more so than endless pontification about delusional grand schemes which might never happen.
Councillors probably think Ucan is big and strong enough to get over this setback.
Let’s pray their patients are, too.
David Knight is the long-serving former deputy editor of The Press and Journal
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