They gave him six months of life, but lives for 25 years with prostate cancer. Passion for sport saved her life
Former President of Surrey CCC, Mike Soper, the longest-lived patient with cancer, recently said in an interview that the passion for cricket saved his life.
The man says the passion for cricket saved his life
Mike Soper, 80 years old, is the former president of the Cricket club in Surrey County. He told The Thelegraph that he was 55 when the specialist doctor told him he had to live only 6 months.
“At the time of my diagnosis, I was 55 years old and I had just retired. I was the president of the cricket club in Surrey county and successfully rebuilt the team and redeem the Oval Stadium. I was returning home by car from there when I felt a strange pain in my chest. At first, my family doctor thought it was heart and prescribed beta-blockers“He said.
Mike was the president of the Cricket club in Surrey County at the time of his diagnosis.
He said he went on vacation to San Francisco, and five weeks later the doctor did his full analysis. He said: “I did blood tests three times to two different laboratories just to be sure“Adding:”Not only do you have prostate cancer but you also have a PSA [antigen specific prostatei] of 580 [ng/ml; dacă ai peste 70 de ani, o valoare mai mare de 6,5 ng/ml ar fi considerată ridicată ]. Undoubtedly, it is metastasized in many ways. ”
“The urologist told me he could do nothing and gave me an appointment over four months, when he had just told me that I could die in three! It was a funny time. There was no treatment, apart from hormonal therapy, a combination of Zoladex and Casodex, to block testosterone production,” he added.
The call that saved her life
His relationships with the cricket saved his life, says the man, adding that John Major, the former prime minister and his friend, was the president of the Cricket Surrey club at that time. He called and told him he was very sick, asking him if he knew someone in the US who knew other treatments or clinical studies.
He called on Christmas Eve and told him to wait for a call from Professor Chris Logothetis of the Houston MD Cancer Center, one of the most important world experts in prostate cancer. He flew there, took all the results of the analysis and went to Professor Lugothetis, who told him he can keep him alive for five years.
At that time, at the NHS you were doing hormonal therapy, and when it did not work, usually after about 18 months, you started chemotherapy, which could give you a slightly longer period of life.
Since then, he says, “The rest of my struggle with prostate cancer was a real struggle ”. In 2015, the PSA started growing again. In 2016, they discovered a lung tumor, but it turned out that it was not related to prostate cancer.
“I feel like an 18th grade guinea pig and this was the hardest treatment so far, but I'm going on“He added.
“Now, they are one of the 67 men in a clinical study of a medicine so new that it does not have a name. My PSA was 1,237 ng/ml when I started. Once a week, in the last 29 weeks, I received an infusion with this medicine for three hours. At first I had trembling and seizures, and my temperature increased to 39.5 ° C, but my body slowly adapted. Now, I simply dizzy and I have a long sleep ”Mike said.
He added that “he is busy” and that, in fact, the criket was “an excellent salvation ”.
“My advice to others is to research the disease and to inform as much as possible. There is so much information available now, compared to 25 years ago – take advantage of any opportunity to participate in a clinical study. Also, Wear a cold cap if you do chemotherapybecause my hair saved my hair ”, added Mike Soper.
