Cork teacher shares prostate cancer story in new book: ‘Don’t be macho, men’

RETIRED Cork teacher Gerry Kelly is searingly honest about the trials and tribulations of his prostate cancer diagnosis.

He has chronicled his journey in his pocketbook, Prostate Piddling Passion, and is keen to get the message out there about the disease.

Gerry, a Galway native who in his sixties, and who has been living in Cork since 1975, having worked as a woodwork teacher and school principal before his retirement, explains how the diagnosis came about,

“I had a fair bit of nagging from my wife Maire after Covid restrictions lifted,” he recalls. “She urged me to go to my GP for the ‘once over’.

I had gone for them previously and always got a clean bill of health, but there had been a year or so during Covid when I couldn’t get in for one.

Gerry stalled.

“I told Maire I’d go in this week, or maybe next week,” he admits.

“And, eventually I made the appointment, got my bloods done and happily retired back to ‘Granda’ duty.”

A week later, Gerry got a call from his doctor.

“In the space of a year my PSA (Prostate-Specific-Antigen) had gone up,” he says.

“I had a digital examination examining the prostrate for distortions, lumps or bumps.”

Gerry didn’t dwell on having the examination. He thought of something else.

“I was giggling inside as I recalled the wonderful comedian Paddy Comerford describing such an event,” says Gerry. “He said the patient was unhappy with the doctor’s diagnosis during a DRE (digital rectal examination) and demanded a second opinion, whereupon the doctor inserted two fingers!”

Gerry had a second blood test and was referred to a urologist, who booked him in for a cystoscopy and flow test.

“For the flow test, I was in the waiting room sipping a 500ml water bottle and my task was to call the nurse when I was ready to piddle,” says Gerry.

Nothing happened.

“I consumed seven 500mlw of water in total, which is three and a half litres. Then my flow happened!”

What happened next?

“I had a small camera up my water-spout until it reached my bladder, followed by an MRI which culminated in having biopsies done,” says Gerry, “Priorities are cancer, continence and potence.

“Then, biopsy results day was looming, and this would be definitive in deciding analysis of my diagnosis.

The area of concern shown by the MRI was cancer tissue. There was enough concern to merit action. There were three options.

What option did Gerry choose?

“I was discussing a robotic prostatectomy with the doctors. My wife, who is a great support to me and who is a midwife and a nurse, agreed.”

Gerry prepared himself for the procedure.

“A couple of Guinness mid-afternoon, an early dinner and hopefully a good night’s sleep would be good preparation for the morning’s procedure. Isn’t it always the way that when you set the alarm that you wake well before it?

“As I walked the short distance to the Mater Private, I had enough time to ponder, how bad can I be?”

It wasn’t that bad.

“When I was appropriately dressed and on a theatre bed, a nice man called an anaesthetist started asking me the kind of questions a stranger might ask on a train journey. I was doing great with my answers when I’m sure he noticed that I stopped mid-sentence and I had submitted my body to the surgeon and medical team for the next five hours.”

The procedure went well. The cancer was contained, and he hasn’t required further cancer treatment.

“Soon, I was shuffling along like a fast turtle!” says Gerry, laughing.

“Even though I had a water bottle strapped to my leg!”

Post-op, Gerry coped well.

“I was coping with my piddling apparatus fairly well,” he says.

“The nappy was important too, to catch any leakage.”

Gerry finds the humour in talking about rebuilding his pelvic floor, dealing with the impact on continence, and the use of Viagra to deal with erectile dysfunction.

“After I got the surgery, I experienced a bit of pathetic fallacy, I suppose,” says Gerry. 

I couldn’t play golf or cycle for three months and I decided to buy a motorbike.

His humour is infectious.

“There was no horn on the bike and the tank was piddling leaking. And I just thought, this bike is like me!”

Gerry was lucky to have his wife and family around him.

“I remember the journeys up to Dublin to hospital. There were just the two of us and we stayed overnight, and we bonded. I bonded with my daughters. They were always there for me.”

Gerry pays tribute to his wife, his fellow traveller and his wing-woman.

“From my diagnosis onwards, she was my satnav lady for the entire journey,” says Gerry.

“She was my nurse, my travelling companion, consoler and cuddler. She has never made me feel less of a man since my surgery.

“We will have a huge celebration when my puberty strikes twice!”

As the song says, ‘it’s be hard to be a woman’, but men have their own health struggles going through life too.

“There is a cohort of men at great risk because they may be macho about it, or might not have anyone to encourage them to get checked,” says Gerry.

They will say things like, ‘If I go to the doctor, they’ll only find something wrong with me’. But, sure, great if they do - at least you can deal with it then.

Gerry was cheered by the fact that he was an early detection case and things would turn out well.

“I could hear The Dubliners lyrics rattle around in my head,” says Gerry, recalling the song Maids When You’re Young, Never Wed An Old Man. “He’s got no faloorum, he’s lost his ding doorum...!’

Gerry, far from an old man, embraces life.

“The prostate cancer journey gave me time to reflect,” he says. “It gave me a new and different outlook on life.

I now had a close encounter, and I was aware of how lucky I was to have a successful outcome. I felt that in the greater scheme of things, I wasn’t dealt the worst hand.

“Many of my contemporaries had fared a lot worse, some even losing their battle for life.”

Gerry got a second bite of the cherry.

“After being given a second chance, I recalibrated my pace of life,” he says.

“I was now a lot more comfortable in my role as grandfather.

“This status underlined how lucky I had been to have had a healthy prostate for so many years.

“I was enjoying the company of four inquisitive, demanding and entertaining grandchildren. This gift was deprived to so many of my friends who had passed with other cancers without seeing their children’s children.”

Gerry sees the world from both sides now.

“Once a man, twice a child,” he says.

“I suppose having a prostatectomy around the Covid era wasn’t the worst timing as many social events hadn’t yet returned in their full glory.

“By the time all such social events fully opened up, I was ready to rock and roll too.”

Gerry is always ready to rock and roll now.

“The prostate is removed, the piddling problem is greatly under control, and the erectile function issue is in hand, but not while driving!”

Prostate Piddling Passion is available to purchase on gerrykellycork.com