An Oxfordshire man is launching a campaign to fight the war against prostate cancer in the month when figures show that prostate cancer has reached its highest-ever level in the UK.
For the first time, more men are dying from prostate cancer each year than women are from breast cancer.
Timon Colegrove from Woodstock in Oxfordshire was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the age of 56 as he was about to get married.
He was facing a conventional cancer treatment plan using radiotherapy likely to produce the widely-known side effects of impotence and incontinence.
Timon heard about proton beam therapy by chance, after he attended a talk given at his local golf club by a professor from the Rutherford Cancer Centre and opted for the revolutionary new treatment.
Timon has just been given his first annual all-clear from Rutherford Cancer Care. He still has a normal physical relationship with his wife and has no other complications.
Now Timon has set up a campaign called Men Are Talking to tackle the embarrassment surrounding prostate cancer and dispel the myth that debilitating radiation is our only option.
A study in the US recently confirmed that proton therapy slashes the risk of impotence and incontinence, due to the ability to precision-target cancer cells as
opposed to the ‘scatter gun’ approach of radiation. Impotence and incontinence are so life-changing that rather than face such humiliations, the majority of men would prefer to ignore their cancer symptoms.
