Although my wife is battling ovarian cancer at the moment, I had my own scare at the end of Novemer 2024 when I had found that there were traces of blood in my urine. I had gone straight down to the local Urgent Treatment Centre and had this 10 day cancer referral process. The blood in the urine had disappeared after about 3 days but I did have an anxious wait to have some scans and checks done to rule out the possibility that either prostate, bladder or kidney cancer was in its early stages.

Fortunately after a meeting with the urology consultant last week who went through my PSA blood test (for prostate cancer), a cystoscopy (a process to look in the bladder) and a CT scan, all of them had come back negative. However, I did pass several kidney stones over 20 years ago and they had found that there were some present in the flesh of my left kidney. I had two options to go for the wait and see approach or to opt for the process called Lithotripsy which uses high ultra-sonic shockwave that breaks the stones into smaller fragments that can safely pass out of the body. I have to say that I am not looking forward to having this done but prefer to have them removed to avoid the risk of the intense pain that it can cause if they do start moving.