I first knew about this cancer when I came home after a long day at work and went to the loo. I passed a lot of blood in my water, which scared me.

Naturally, my first call was to my GP who immediately sent me for an X-ray, which confirmed that I had a large tumour in my bladder.  They said it was about the size of my thumb, which meant it was quite a large tumour.

Now you can imagine the thoughts going through my head; I was in my mid-thirties at the time with a wife and 3 young children. I thought I was going to die young, after all, I’d been a smoker for over 20 years.

I was extremely fortunate to have PMI (private medical insurance) at the time so I was able to get the tumour excised (removed) quite rapidly, that is to say within two weeks or so. I was also very pleased to have Mr Michael Heal as my surgeon.  Mr Heal was a renowned surgeon who had the Urology department named after him when he retired, sometime around 1990.

Fortunately for me, I had been followed up and checked upon closely, so I didn’t mind when he retired.

Sadly the bladder cancer struck again in 2002 but this time I had no PMI, however, I  found myself under the care of another excellent private surgeon, Mr Paul Irwin who also worked in the NHS, so I considered myself very lucky.

Please donate to the Christie Hospital for all of the fantastic work they do in the NHS and privately. You can also read more about my cancers: bladder cancer.

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