Advanced Prostate Cancer and High-Risk Cancer Zoom Support Group

The Advanced Prostate Cancer and High-Risk Cancer Zoom Support Group operates out of Brisbane.  Zoom meetings occur on the fourth Friday of every month.

Zoom meeting dates for 2024:

• 19 January, 2024 (week early for Australia Day)
• 23 February, 2024
• 22 March, 2024
• 26 April, 2024
• 24 May, 2024
• 28 June, 2024
• 26 July, 2024
• 23 August, 2024
• 27 September, 2024
• 25 October, 2024
• 22 November, 2024
• 20 December, 2024 (week early for Christmas Day)

Overview

History

In 2009 there was a man who had no idea that his doctor was testing his PSA in his annual checkups. He had never heard of the prostate. He had no idea why his GP had sent him to a specialist.  He nearly died of fright when that specialist held up a scan and said "This is your prostate. This is typical of a large cancer mass"!

Samples taken shortly afterward showed that the right side of his prostate was full of aggressive prostate cancer (Gleason score 9). The cancer had grown into the left side of the prostate. It had also grown out of the prostate, through the prostate wall in two places, including up and around nearby organs called the seminal vesicles. He had a large, aggressive, locally advanced prostate cancer.

His journey began with visits to local prostate cancer support groups. But in those days, he found members and guest speakers focused on operations and the problems of incontinence and impotence that came with them. No talk of the advanced kind of radiotherapy he had been recommended. No talk of what high-risk men might face in the future, and what other treatments they might take.

Then, after a few meetings, one man drew him aside. That man had recently had the advanced radiation treatment. He handed over a few pages with a blow-by-blow account of his personal experience of the treatment in minute detail. The two men and their partners resolved to share any information they gathered on what lay ahead of them, and to bring that knowledge to others in the same boat.

From that beginning as just two men and their partners in Brisbane, it gradually became a south-east Queensland group, a whole of Queensland, then in 2010 the whole of Australia group.

Communications began with simple one-on-one telephone calls and snail mail, moved to group calls with many on their phones at the same time. With advances in technology, the group has evolved into a Zoom group.

In 2023, 14 years later, that man is leading a full and active life with his family and his community.

Contacts

All you need to know about the Zoom meetings - dates, recordings, the current invitation - is found on the home page of JimJimJimJim.com. If you already know Zoom, the current invitation is https://JimJimJimJim.com/zoom

Meetings are generally at 9:30am (EST) time on the fourth Friday of each month. (Not always the last Friday). The dates are listed as the top of this page and a link near the top of JimJimJimJim.com will tell all the dates, including the changed dates for December and January.

Nev Black

Email: SurfersCentury@hotmail.com

SMS: 0419 673 096

Not sure the group is for you? New to Zoom and need help on how to start? - SMS Nev and ask for a return call.

Jim Marshall - the technical guy

If you are very keen to be very private, and don't want to share your email or phone details, the Contact form at the bottom of the JimJimJimJim.com home page will let you contact Jim and Nev without them being able to see your email address, or you being able to see theirs.

Disclaimer

This group does not give medical advice. No members are authorised to give medical advice. Ask your doctor if you hear anything here that you think may be related to your treatment.