A Life Changing Monthly Meeting

This is a short note of thanks to the Melbourne PC User Group.

I’ve been a member for just on 30 years. One of my moves into a different vocation over my lifetime involved writing database programs. These were very successful mainly because of the assistance I received from the SIGs. I wrote programs for Law Offices, Hotels, The Alfred Hospital etc. Not so oddly enough if I look back at any of my programs now I have no idea how I did them. Time can be a nuisance.

My biggest thank you to you and the Melbourne PC User Group is for the webinar you organised in February this year by Prof. Nathan Lawrentschuk. I not only viewed the webinar, I recorded it because I thought this could be valuable knowledge. Lo and behold a blood test in March showed a PSA (prostate specific antigen) of 46. The GP said he would refer me to a urologist. I said no you won’t. I want a referral to Nathan Lawrentschuk. He said he hadn’t heard of him. I responded by saying that Nathan was the only person I wished to see.

After MRIs, biopsies, PET scans and reinforcing orthopaedic surgery I have the full knowledge of my predicament i.e. advanced, metastatic prostate cancer. I am in a trial at Peter Mac for the latest treatment of this dreadful disease and the prognosis is extremely hopeful. My PSA has gone from a high of 56 to 1.69 last Tuesday (Jul 13).

In Nathan’s presentation he quoted a statistic that if a man at the age of 40 had a PSA lower than 0.7 he would have a 99% chance of never suffering prostate cancer. My PSA at age 62 was 0.6. I mentioned that to Nathan and he said “you are just in the unlucky 1%”. Bummer!

So David I know in my heart that you and the user group have substantially extended my life and most probably saved my life by organising that magnificent prostate cancer presentation.

THANK YOU!