A retired councillor has said he endured 18 months of anxiety before he was declared clear of prostate cancer. Richard Westlake, 74, was first alerted in November 2015 that his night-time trips to the toilet may be a sign of the condition, combined with a raised prostate specific antigen test.
Mr Westlake, from Exeter, then faced months of hospital visits, first for a biopsy, then for a more invasive biopsy procedure, along with X-rays and a combination of other tests, each followed by an anguished wait for the result. The retired Devon county councillor and train driver was finally given the all-clear in June 2017 after a second biopsy.
“I was quite surprised to be honest,” he said of the result. “I’d been expecting it to be positive, all that time. But I wasn’t celebrating - I’d been through a very difficult time, with all that testing, waiting, unpleasantness and anxiety.
