An engineer with prostate cancer who has urinary incontinence as a result of his treatments has said he wants to increase education and understanding so that men can have “a degree of dignity” and avoid “embarrassment” while living with the condition. Mervyn Bryans, 69, a part-time engineer, was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the age of 57.
He explained that he has a family history of the disease, as his mother had breast cancer and his grandfather had prostate cancer, although he had no symptoms prior to his own diagnosis. Mervyn had surgery to remove his prostate and part of his bladder to treat the cancer, and this led to him developing urinary incontinence – a condition which he does not have “the capacity to control”.
However, Mervyn refuses to let urinary incontinence make him “walk away and wither and die”, and he wants to encourage men not to “bury their head in the sand”, but rather talk about it and seek advice.
