{"id":5703,"date":"2020-11-10T07:41:28","date_gmt":"2020-11-10T15:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.infoblox.com\/?p=5703"},"modified":"2020-12-04T11:23:49","modified_gmt":"2020-12-04T19:23:49","slug":"why-im-growing-a-crumb-catcher-this-movember","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infoblox.com\/blog\/company\/why-im-growing-a-crumb-catcher-this-movember\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I\u2019m growing a Crumb Catcher this Movember"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s nothing like a personal experience to bring a cause close to your heart. In my case, it was family history with prostate cancer that focused my attention on men\u2019s health and the importance for men to access comprehensive health services.<\/p>\n

My grandfather was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the age of 42. 50 years ago, diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer was a brutal process, to say the least. My family is all too aware of the journey and knows that family history is a clear marker for prostate cancer.<\/p>\n

Did you know that men with a first-degree male relative with prostate cancer are more likely to develop it themselves than men with no family history? The more male relatives develop prostate cancer, the higher the risk for other family members. And risks are higher for men whose male relatives were young when diagnosed.<\/p>\n

Age is also an indicator. The risk of developing prostate cancer by age 75 is 1 in 7 men. By age 85, the risk factor goes up to 1 in 6 men. And the\u00a0most\u00a0common age for diagnosis\u00a0is between 65 and 69 years.<\/p>\n

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Armed with this knowledge, the men in my family have always maintained regular health checks, including the prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood test. Since his forties, my Father monitored himself regularly and carefully for signs of prostate cancer. He did everything the doctors told him to do. Then,\u00a0one day in his 70th<\/sup> year, he just didn\u2019t feel right. The GP had no particular concerns, but Father was uneasy and pushed for extra scans.<\/p>\n

It turned out his prostate cancer was lurking behind the prostate in a location that would never have been detected by standard processes available in the public health system.<\/p>\n

Although prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men, and around 16,000 Australian men are diagnosed with it every year, procedures for detection and treatment are not always free[1]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is one of the reasons the mission of the Movember Foundation to raise awareness around men\u2019s health resonates deeply with me. Many men\u2019s health realities are issues we simply don\u2019t hear enough about. For example, research by the Department of Health and Welfare in 2017-2018 showed that[2]<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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