Travels around my prostate

• Seven of the 10 men with a higher than normal PSA level will be found not to have prostate cancer at the time of screening.

90 men out of 100 tested will have a normal PSA level. Of these 90 men:

• 88 of the men with a normal PSA level will not have prostate cancer.

• One or two of the men with a normal PSA level will actually have prostate cancer, undetected by the test.

The probability that the PSA test gives a true positive for me is 0.063 x 88/90 or 0.0616 (xy in the formula; note two people out of 90 are missed.)

The probability that the PSA test gives a false positive for me is 0.927 x .07 or 0.0656 ((1-x)z in the formula.

The sum of the true and false positives is 0.1272 and so according to Bayes the probability that I have prostate cancer is 48% which is much higher than I originally thought and so I decided to have the biopsy comforted by the fact that my bridge partner, who also is a GP, said the needle was very thin and sharp. What he not say is that they use multiple needles and in my case they used 24. My prostate had become a pin cushion.

Post the biopsy in mid January a new number entered my vocabulary, the Gleeson Factor which is the sum of the two most common cells in my samples. Grade 1 is nearly normal, Grade 5 is the highest score of abnormality. My score was 7 comprising 3+4. Not bad (8-10 score) but not great (score of six or below) which set off the alarm bells.

The next step was to determine whether the cancer had spread out of the prostate which is done with CT and nuclear bone scans. The good news was that the diagnosed prostate cancer had not spread.

Secondly I then discovered that I had joined the biggest men's club in the world. Using social media I then had old friends and acquaintances appearing from everywhere. It seemed as if 50% of all the people I talked to either had prostate issues or their partners did. I have now since learnt the odds for getting some cancer in your life time are 1 in 2 for men and 1 in 3 for women. Two forms (that's me) is 1 in 10 and three types is 1 in 100.

When I started on this journey I had radiation treatment as preference over surgery on the basis the latter made you both incontinent and impotent. Also I was worried about the risk of infection. My good friend Antony Mayer who lives in London has gone in for triple bypass which was meant to be for 7 days and 48 days later staggered out of the hospital because he had unfortunately picked up an infection.

I then learned about the 'seeds' or brachytherapy which as it takes only one day to insert and little risk of side effects sounded the best. However during Tuesday's meeting with the radiation doctor I found out my prostate is too big and I would require six months of female hormone therapy to reduce its size before they would contemplate putting in the radioactive iodine. Also he would recommend a combined radiation procedure that would take visits every weekday for 6 weeks and if you have ever tried to park at the Mater Hospital where the radiation would take place you would know that it was impossible.