Nick Fletcher was forced to travel 100 miles every day for a month for life-saving treatment.
The 58-year-old man from Malton, North Yorkshire, traveled 50 miles to a hospital in Leeds each morning for radiotherapy.
He was diagnosed with prostate cancer at York Hospital’s Magnolia Center. However, Fletcher was left with no choice but to undertake the ‘tiring’ two and a half hour round trip to and from St James’s University Hospital in Leeds.
He said no hospital in York was able to carry out the procedure and the nearest one that had the machines needed for his radiotherapy treatment was in Leeds.
The media assistant underwent tests in January 2022 and was officially diagnosed around April 2022.
Nick Fletcher, 58, was forced to travel 100 miles every day for a month for life-saving treatment.
Fletcher said his consultant said he was lucky as it was caught at a relatively early stage and the cancer was still contained in the prostate.
Almost immediately he received hormone treatment at his local surgery and started radiotherapy in Leeds in September 2022.
He received five consecutive sessions each week for a month, which meant he had to travel every day except weekends.
Fletcher said: ‘The journey was a bit tricky. It was about 100 miles a day and I had to go every day, but I had weekends off.
‘If it hadn’t been for the trip, it would have been so much easier. But having said that, you have to go where the machines are and I can’t praise the staff enough.
‘There were no machines in York or Scarborough. It was a case where you had to go where these machines are.
“They told me at the hospital that someone was even coming from Newcastle.
‘There was one night where I came home late at night, around 8pm, because treatment times varied so much, and the next morning I had to be there at 8am.
‘Fortunately, I have a good family that supports me, and my sister and brother took me.’
Mr Fletcher, pictured, said he was lucky his family took him to hospital and drove him back.
And he added that the trip could have been more challenging if he had had to take public transportation.
He said he was given the option of undergoing radiation therapy or having an operation to remove his prostate. But the consultants thought that the combination of hormone treatment and radiation therapy would be the most effective option.
The 58-year-old man from Malton, North Yorkshire, traveled 50 miles to a hospital in Leeds each morning for radiotherapy.
Despite the long drives, he praised the hospital staff and said he’s glad the treatment seems to have worked.
Mr Fletcher decided to be checked for prostate cancer because there was a ‘pattern in his family’ as several of his brothers also had the cancer and had been cured.
He underwent biopsies and scans in January 2022, and doctors found his blood PSA (prostate-specific antigen) level to be 55 ng/ml; normal levels in which there is no risk of prostate cancer are usually around 4 ng / or less. milliliters
However, after undergoing radiotherapy and hormone treatment, he was pleased to say that his test in January this year showed his PSA level to be 0.12 ng/ml.
Speaking of the distance, he said: ‘That was the only drawback. I would like something a little closer.
‘It was tiring to travel as it was also late autumn. Maybe they could make more hubs for this.
‘When I was approaching this treatment, I didn’t really think much of it. But I went to a pre-treatment plan in Leeds about two weeks before the radiotherapy. I never really thought about it, but one day it hit me and I thought, “wait a minute, I have to go to Leeds every day for the next month.”
‘To be honest, I’m not very good at traveling so it was quite challenging for me and very tiring.
“It took me about an hour and a quarter there and an hour and a quarter back. When he got there he would go in about an hour before his treatment and empty his bladder and stuff like that.
‘But the procedure itself didn’t take long, mainly traveling was the problem. If you did everything right, just the full scan and treatment.
