“This didn’t really happen often, unless it was a significant event like someone in the immediate family was pregnant or getting married or undertaking a major career change.
“Something about this time felt different, a much more sombre approach, which left me with a feeling of angst in the pit of my stomach but I was hopeful it wasn’t bad news.
“Then dad mentioned the dreaded word, ‘cancer’, which was diagnosed following investigation from symptoms he had.
“It was stage four advanced and aggressive prostate cancer with no cure. The diagnosis sounded so final. I couldn’t believe it, none of us could.
“Life completely changed very quickly for all of us after that day.”
Despite treatment, Nnamdi’s condition deteriorated over time.
“Towards his second year after diagnosis, we started to see increased side effects and eventually ineffectiveness in the control and spread of the cancer,” Emeka said.
“Over the next two years we saw a constant battle with progressively worse side effects from new treatments or cancer growth and spread which left dad needing regular blood transfusions, frequently fighting infections and sepsis, being in constant excruciating pain, experiencing delirium, extreme mood swings and eventually being bed bound and unable to do basic tasks such as eating or going to the bathroom without assistance.
“It was heartbreaking to see dad who was once so strong, now fully dependent on others and in constant pain.”
In December 2019, Nnamdi was admitted to hospital where he spent his 40th wedding anniversary, Christmas and New Year.
A month later he opted to come home, where he received round the clock palliative end of life care.
Emeka said: “During the following months, a third grandchild was born in February 2020 who dad managed to meet on a couple occasions and by March 2020, the COVID-19 lockdown began.
“I never saw my dad again other than on video calls, until he eventually passed away peacefully in May 2020, a month before his 70th birthday.”
In honour of this dad, Emeka now raises awareness of the disease with his two sisters through an organisation called Prostate Cancer Black Men (PCBM).
According to Prostate Cancer UK, one in four black men will get prostate cancer in their lifetime whereas other men have a one in eight chance.
“We work with other aligned organisations in the community, as well as having worked with organisations and charities such as Prostate Cancer UK, Cancer Research UK and Stand Up to Cancer, to help spread awareness of the increased prostate cancer risk to the black community,” Emeka added.
“We hope that more people can be better informed and equipped to understand their risk and take effective and proactive action to hopefully save lives.”
Prostate cancer does not always present with symptoms in the early stages.
Symptoms do not usually appear until the prostate is enlarged enough to affect the urethra, causing:
- Needing to urinate more frequently, often during the night
- Needing to rush to the toilet
- Difficulty in starting to urinate (hesitancy)
- Straining or taking a long time while urinating
- Weak flow
- Feeling that your bladder has not emptied fully
- Blood in urine or blood in semen.
If you experience symptoms of prostate cancer you should speak to your GP.
To calculate your risk of the disease you can use Prostate Cancer UK’s 30 second online risk checker at prostatecanceruk.org/riskcheck.
The tracker comes as part of a new initiative to help men better understand the disease, as research showed on 35 percent of men realised early-stage prostate cancer often has no symptoms.
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