If you are diagnosed with prostate cancer (PCa) you’re not alone. You’ve joined a club you never wanted to be part of—and it’s a very large club indeed. In 2023, it’s estimated that over 288,000 men will receive a PCa diagnosis. While it may not be much consolation to know how many guys are in the same situation as you, I thought that from time to time it might be interesting to identify some high profile figures who walked in the same shoes as you now find yourself in. In my book, those who choose to share their experience in hopes of encouraging others are PCa heroes.

For this blog, I’ve chosen British actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer Stephen Fry. This multi-talented star of stage and screen opened up about his diagnosis and treatment in a revealing February 18, 2019 article for the journal Nature Reviews Urology. “Both Sides of the Scalpel: The Patient and The Surgeon View” intersperses Stephen’s memories with those of his surgeon, Ben Challacombe.

I recommend reading the entire article if for no other reason than Stephen’s lively writing and heartening honesty. Many PCa patients find it hard to articulate how their diagnosis has impacted them, so Fry’s insights may help others identify their innermost feelings. I pulled some quotes from the article that I thought were especially illuminating, with my own comments added in italics.

1. “My story is no different from that of thousands and thousands of men every year in the UK alone.” Prostate cancer is one of life’s great equalizers. It doesn’t care if you’re rich and famous, or poor and unknown. It is blind to your skin color, status symbols, what you do for a living, how many kids you have, where you live, or your moral principles (or lack thereof). You may not have much in common with other members of club, but everyone shares PCa as the universal qualifier.
2. “[A]s all medical practitioners of every kind will know — the moment their patients are given any diagnosis or referral, they will reach for the Internet. Must be maddening for the professional, but how can we help ourselves?“ Turning to the internet for information about your disease is a two-sided coin. On the one hand, I find that patients who have done their research are generally well-informed, and their questions reflect how well they are self educated. On the other hand, the internet contains information that is incomplete, or simply wrong. There is a lot of misinformation about ablative therapies in particular.
3. “I cannot emphasize enough the importance to me of the interpersonal skills of the entire team who attended to me over the course of my diagnosis, treatment, recovery, and convalescence. I think this is where medical practice has most changed and advanced over the years I’ve been around.” At our Center, we know that extending empathy, making eye contact, learning our patients’ interests and what’s important to them, taking time to listen and provide information and insight into each patient’s unique disease and quality of life make a huge difference in their PCa journey.
4. (After the biopsy) There followed, of course, a period of waiting — every day that passes between a test and its results drags out horribly and sleep comes slowly. The words bounce around inside one’s head: “you’ve got cancer … you’ve got cancer … cancer, cancer, cancer”. Each patient experiences anxiety differently, but Stephen’s haunting description of his brain’s activity touches a nerve. No matter how much positivity and bravery a patient musters, no matter how low-risk his PCa, the word cancer triggers some degree of fear and worry.
5. I now had a talk with the radiotherapy specialist at the Prostate Center, Professor Heather Payne. She took me through with exemplary kindness and clarity the process of hormone therapy and X-ray treatment that comprised one of the two treatment options. Despite her cheerful optimism, I began to feel straight away that this was not the choice for me. I chose this quote as an example of Stephen’s personal conviction against hormone therapy (he had a Gleason 8 cancer, and if he wanted radiation therapy, chemical castration would boost the effectiveness of the radiation). A PCa patient needs to have a good gut feeling about his treatment decision. Sometimes the choice is immediately obvious. At other times, a patient doesn’t really like any of the options given him, and wrestles to make up his mind. But one thing is clear: there should be no misgivings or regret. We strive to ensure that our patients know when a choice is “right” for them, even if they get to that point through a process of elimination.

There’s much more in Stephen’s memoir of his PCa experience than I can do justice to. I hope you will take time to read the entire article—including his surgeon’s side of things—for an intimate window into the world of one prostate cancer hero, Stephen Fry.

NOTE: This content is solely for purposes of information and does not substitute for diagnostic or medical advice. Talk to your doctor if you are experiencing pelvic pain, or have any other health concerns or questions of a personal medical nature.
 

About Dr. Dan Sperling

Dan Sperling, MD, DABR, is a board certified radiologist who is globally recognized as a leader in multiparametric MRI for the detection and diagnosis of a range of disease conditions. As Medical Director of the Sperling Prostate Center, Sperling Medical Group and Sperling Neurosurgery Associates, he and his team are on the leading edge of significant change in medical practice. He is the co-author of the new patient book Redefining Prostate Cancer, and is a contributing author on over 25 published studies. For more information, contact the Sperling Prostate Center.