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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Simon Usborne

‘I’ve been living under a shadow for 13 years’: life with prostate cancer

Junior Hemans with close cropped hair and a grey short beard wearing glasses and a light grey zip up jumper sitting at a table in a darkening room
‘If you wait for symptoms, you might be too late’ … Junior Hemans, 62, chairs the Black Men’s Health Advisory Group at Prostate Cancer UK. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Almost seven years into his retirement, David Bulteel should be enjoying the fruits of his 40-year career in the City. On paper, he has the lot: a tidy pension, delightful grandkids, a big house in the Buckinghamshire commuter belt. He’s naturally upbeat and driven, which he says was in part a reaction to the trauma of losing his right arm in a motorbike crash at 21. He was so energetic and enthusiastic in the office that his nickname was “Tigger”.

“My philosophy has always been that there’s no such thing as a problem that you can’t solve,” Bulteel, 70, tells me from his home, where he’s wearing two jumpers on one of the coldest days of the winter. “The reality now is that I’ve been living under a shadow for 13 years, which has had a huge impact not just on me but on my whole family.”

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