On a massive plus side, I co-founded the Men’s VMU

Greetings,

I'm Doug and I live in Plumstead, South East London and hail from Walthamstow in the East of this fair city,so I moved down wind and across the water.

In 2011, at the age of 49, I thought that I was just an average, good guy, and then I found out that I was different. I became one of only 300 men a year (at that time) in the UK to have breast cancer!

A few days before Christmas, I went to see my doctor. To be honest, I was getting worried about the lump on my nipple which seemed to have escalated in the last couple of months. In Peter Griffin style, I thought I would ignore it and it would go away.

My doctor looked concerned when he saw the lump and sent me for a scan. I was worried, but in the back of my mind I was thinking that it would all be fine. This kind of thing only happens to other people. Two weeks later I went for tests and had to wait until January 12th for the results.

‘Hello Mr. Harper, we have the results of your tests, and I am afraid that you have cancer-CANCER". The word went around my head, CANCER-CANCER-CANCER-CANCER,the last word you want to hear. I was in the room for five minutes and the consultant said a lot, but I heard nothing except CANCER-CANCER-CANCER-CANCER. It is possibly the most taboo word in the English dictionary. This was three days before my 50th birthday and I can honestly say that it’s the worst birthday present EVAH !

I had no idea before being diagnosed that men could get breast cancer. My partner had no idea that men could get breast cancer.  My friends, my family, no one seemed to be aware that men could get breast cancer. And yet there I stood, well sat actually, with a cancerous lump in my chest, and on the verge of soon losing my nipple.

I had six rounds of chemo that affected me to varying degrees and 15 hits of radiography that ended just before Christmas 2012.

The main advantage (if there is such a thing) about being a bloke with breast cancer, is that when you contact anyone in hospital, they usually know who you are as there are very few of us about. There are obvious disadvantages as well, most of the literature and groups are female focussed and everything is pink!

So where am I now you may ask (or maybe you won’t)… Well, in 2024 I am still cancer free but, on the downside, I have been suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome brought on by one of the drugs (Tamoxifen). It causes me to be tired and fatigued and to have short term memory loss amongst other things, but I am still here banging on about breast cancer in men!

Thanks to Perci Health, an online digital cancer clinic, my health has improved and my quality of life is a lot better than it was in 2022. I must stress that everyone reacts differently to treatments and not all treatments are the same.

On a massive plus side, I co-founded The Men’s VMU (Virtual Meet Up) with Dr Kerry Quincey. The first meeting was in October 2020 and up until then, I had only ever spoken to one other chap who had breast cancer. I cannot explain how great it feels to connect with others who have gone through what I did and to offer each other support and advice.

At the VMU, we all want to spread awareness that men can get breast cancer too,so that everybody can be diagnosed early enough to get treatment and have a greater chance of not dying from the disease.

Thanks for reading this,or if you are using the narrator function, thanks for listening.

Doug