When David Weir heard the words ‘you have prostate cancer’, he felt numb.
He wondered if that was what soldiers felt like moments before they walked into battle.
“It’s inevitable. I just got given a death sentence, yet when the execution takes place, when the sentence is going to be carried out, is an unknown time period.”
The Christchurch tutor was calling for more men to get tested for prostate cancer during Blue September, a fundraising and awareness campaign run by the Prostate Cancer Foundation.
Weir was diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer in February 2024, which is currently incurable.
His mission now is to get men tested.
“Find out what your PSA (prostate-specific antigen) score is, get it done regularly and understand what some of the symptoms are because I just didn’t really know what was happening until it was too late.
“There is twice the number of men dying from prostate cancer over the holiday break than the total number that get killed on the roads at Christmas time.”
Weir received a PSMA SPECT/CT scan in February 2024, after an injection that illuminated all of the prostate cells in the body.
“When that was on the screen, I can still remember the clarity of thinking ‘oh s***. This is not good news’. I could see all the sparkly lights and thought ‘that's not what I want to see’. I remember myself being extraordinarily calm, and thinking ‘okay this is the worst-case scenario, there is nothing I can do about it’."
Russell George, who runs a Christchurch prostate cancer support group, was also urging people to get tested.
He joined the group because he wanted to be around people who had similar experiences, and he also wanted more information.
Prostate cancer was one of the most easily treatable cancers if found early, he said.
“One in eight men under 80 will have prostate cancer in their life. Four and a half thousand men roughly are diagnosed every year, and around 730 to 750 dies of it each year.
"Many of those deaths are quite needless. If men got out there and got tested much earlier, then some of those deaths would be quite preventable.”
During Blue September, people are encouraged to raise money for the Prostate Cancer Foundation, and raise awareness of the issue.
George said people didn't have to give a lot - any little bit helped.
The message for Blue September was clear: Get tested, the earlier the better.
“Some men treat it as a badge of their masculinity to see how long they can stay away from the health system,” George said.
Weir agreed.
“Men that get detected early enough, their life expectancy is very similar to men without prostate cancer… Men are their own worst enemies.
"They aren't proactive when it comes to their health. This is a very curable thing if they can be bothered enough to get proactive… If you get detected really early you get options that I didn’t have."
