One thing i really try to avoid in this male cancer charity circus is  conferences or black tie balls. Two reasons, one i am shy and two i  feel guilty that some one is some were shitting them self on chemo and i am eating posh food and drinking champers. Silly of me yes but can’t change how i feel. Patrick Cox who started  the “Male cancer awareness campaign  rang me to say he was sorting a weekend in Belfast as they have had a zero death rate in Northern Ireland last year for testicular cancer. It would be a dinner and a walk through Belfast and all the major testicular cancer charities would be there. Myself and Pat have been on each others radar for a good 6 years. I think he started about the same time as me, maybe the year before? ,,, does it matter?  rambling away!,  BUT he said would i like to come along and bring a few of the checkemlads survivors. I said yes or course but put the phone down and hoped he would forgot he rang me. He works so hard at cancer awareness and has always been supportive of me but i really do hate conferences and functions. Maybe its because i am a cancer survivor and maybe its because if people come and talk to me about what they do with their charities and talk figures and money i would not have a clue what to say back.Banks talk about money, not cancer survivors, banks talk about targets, not cancer survivors, it bores me to tears. I was a soldier, did crap at school and know very few long words. I do what i do how i know best, just get stuck in and get results, the army makes you like that. Very few words but loads of go.

Not long after Pat came to see me in Heswall were i was working to talk about what he had planned. So we had some dinner and the poor lad had to listen to my crap for an hour or two but he convinced me to come along and bring some lads with me. Yes, for Northern Ireland to be told well done for zero deaths from all the charities and survivors is a worth while thing to do and why not raise some awareness while we are there?… SOLD. 

I flew to Belfast  the and landed in a place i had only ever known as a young soldier, i did foot patrols there in the very early 90′s and all the crap that came with it and as i got off the easyjet plane in the airport two army helicopters flew over head and landed over at the army side of the airport which brought it all back and as i walked towards the airport door i could not help but think i really really should not have come here. As i waited for my bag on the carousel i was looking over both shoulders and checking people out. This was me in 1992 on the falls road (on the left)

I gave my head a shake and started to mumble to myself “behave your self”. Those few moment were confusing to say the least. Pat said there would be some one there to meet me at the airport but i forgot to ask who so i walked out of the gate to be met by a wonderful model called Laura Lacole holding sign with Philly on it in big letters!. i look round to see if any other people were heading her way and to my surprise it really was me she was looking for, GOOD START i thought to myself and she and her friend drove me to Belfast, we did a radio interview on route and i finally got to the Hilton a few hours later on Belfast water front. I think Laura actually knew i was nervous being back there and sort of spent time reassuring me about Belfast She was a wonderful start to the weekend. Thanks Laura x

I was met at the door by some of the other charities from the USA , i know a few of  them such as Mike Caycraft who came to the survivors trek in wales and was wonderful to see him. Andy Anderson was there and also a very dear friend Ali Shaw  who are both survivors and support checkemlads. Richard clarke who is a footballer and recent survivor also came down and i had my little team of checkemladers there with me which made me even more happy to be there.

(L to R) Me!! Ali Shaw and Andy Anderson, some of the checkemlads survivors.

We all got checked in and set off for the night dinner at a local place hosted by Patrick. It was wonderful to actually meet other people who do what i do and before long i felt a bit easier about talking about cancer over a dinner plate, hear what they were doing, and i actually started to think that this stuff aint to bad really. Pat gave a wonderful speech and mentioned me and the team of checkemlads survivors as people who have made a big difference to the cancer community and awareness and pointed out that we have do wonders for support and getting survivors together as one bunch, I did not know were to look as everyone turned and looked at me so i poked my uneaten burger with a folk and looked up slightly to see if the cost was clear. For Pat to say such a thing is an honor, this man is one of the most respected advocates in the world but it was nice to know that he likes what we do.

We had a good night, some drinks and i chatted to some of the other charity folk, i even shown a bit of interest when figures. targets and strategies were mentioned by the american charities (they love all that) and i just knoded and pretend to know what they were on about, but when one of them asked me what my strategics were for the coming year i think my answer of ” i da know mate” killed the conversation rather quick.

Got back to the hotel a bit wellied and fell asleep after Skyeping my Laura and watching 5 mins of downton abbey!

DAY 2.

Day two would start with breakfast  and get out walking gear on for a ten mile (turned out to be 13) trek from “nuts corner” in the hills to Belfast city center carrying but card board cut outs of Mr Testicles which is Pats mascot and logo for his charity. We all jumped on the bus and headed off through the rain and snow to the start point. There was a massive turn out at the start. Young Laura the model was there with all her mates. loads of local survivors and radio, press and TV. Pat got us all hyped up and off we went. Myself and Richard Clarke took to the front .

It was a long first 5 miles. and the snow blizzard hit us at the top of the hills. Pat have me a right bollocking for walking to far ahead and for being in army speed march mode. SORRY PAT!.

i Chatted with young Robin from the RCT charity which was set up in his brothers name after he sadly died and go so carried away with our conversation that the rest all went down another road and left us two marching off alone. Two police women came flying up the road in a police car to tell us “our mates had gone the other way with out us” all 120 of them! so we had to run back up the hill and down the other road to catch them up. 

By the time we got to them we were in Belfast and the locals were all beeping and cheering and waving at us. It was brilliant, 120 giant testicles marching through Belfast towards the center. By this time we were all cold and wet but loving every second of it.

The taxi drivers were beeping . the locals were cheering and as i walked past some of the places that i used to get bricks chucked at me and spat at it was such a good feeling to be there in peacetime and getting rid of my demons.

Before long we were in the city center and all the shoppers stood at the side of the road clapping us and cheering. We got to the town hall and even though we were cold, tired and wet the energy and magic had took over us. It was very up lifting. we were there to say well done to northern Ireland for leading the way in zero deaths for testicular cancer so we shouted as hard as we could.

We made a noise and that was that. job done and back to the hotel for medals and thank you’s (which i could not go to due to a minor fuck up) But the other checkemlads survivors got there.

It was a brilliant day, fun. wild and mental. We finished off with the charities having dinner and Pat doing a speech

The night was made even better by getting a big donation for checkemlads from Richard Clarke and his mates who played a football match for us (he is a pro player)

So my mind had been changed about charity meet ups, but only for the right reason such as zero deaths and so on, yes i need to get off my soap box and relax a touch about it all but what Pat did that day to say well done to the place and to bring many charities together is with out doubt one of the best days of my life, and with out doubt the best event for testicular cancer i have ever. I am a survivor of cancer and for Pat and the whole bunch of you to take time to do what you do to make more survivors and stop needless death means allot to us checkemlads cancer survivors. Thanks Pat , you did great, you made me change my mind about charity events, you got rid of my demons from my days there as a soldier and most importantly you made Belfast come out and celebrate survival all in one go. 

It will probably now be copied by many but none will come close to the meaning and the day we stopped Belfast in its tracks

The testicular cancer charity/organization world has changed in the last 6 months to something i don’t want to be part of anymore. We all get on pretty well and respect each other But since the Lance Armstrong story came out a big divide is happening in the testicular cancer community. I have seen cancer survivors who run small charities/campaigns who looked up to lance ask a few questions and say how upset they are about what Lance has done only to be turned on by other charities (mostly American)  and basically been verbally abused and witch hunted. I have spent the last 6 months consoling many survivors turned on by Lance supporters who dared speak out, this is not what i am here for. I have always tried to encourage the charities big and small to work together in the UK (which is my downfall apparently!!). Our survivors trek is now being attended by lots of charities including Livestrong every year and it always will be open for any testicular cancer charity to come along and i will always class the bunch of smaller charities like ours as friends. I had testicular cancer just like Lance did and i was upset by what has happened as i look up to lance for starting Livestrong and will ALWAYS admire him, The USA has an awfully unjust health system and any charity that helps people through that is worthy and should be supported so i hope everyone involved stays strong before they livestrong again and the dust settles BUT anyone close to Lance or wanting to be in his little circle who would turn on a survivor of cancer because they question what Lance has done or might have done when they held him in such high regard is in fact lower than the cancer that tried to kill us. I am close to cutting all links with the USA, not that my little charity in the UK means anything to anyone over there BUT if  Livestrong and some of the charities wanting to get in to Lances good books also means alienate and bully the ones with a conscience who ask questions  then you may as well lock the office doors now and take down the banners because chemo is thicker than water . We are cancer survivors too wanting to improve things. It is being noticed in the UK so were else is it being noticed. I have always looked at all cancer survivors as heroes just as much as Lance. Maybe some of the comuntiy needs a rethink and embrace survivors as brother and sister again and not worship icons BUT like i said i find myself having to cut ties from now on and get back to what i and my great bunch of survivors friends wanted to do. Long live Livestrong BUT long live the whole community . Get back to what you do best and bringing people togeather

for a long time now have wanted to let people know what it is like to go through cancer as a young man (youngish at the time!). The awareness of testicular cancer over the last 8 years has really come on through TV such as “Embarrassing bodies” and Morning TV  and  its now more talked about in general. I have done my spots on telly ,radio etc which i don’t like doing  but had too for the cause. Not in this charity thing to be famous to be fair, just to make sure no one goes through what i did or the great survivor friends i now know and i don’t want to see anyone die like the wonderful Mark Gorry did.

Going through cancer is hard work, wrongly or rightly there is a different set of rules for how man are meant to act with cancer  but i still get asked the same questions from men ,and i still get told that they feel completing helpless, scared, alone and don’t know how to act with support from loved ones and friends. Checkemlads has completely shifted from awareness to near enough full time support and i am glad to say that it’s working.

Anyway, i am ranting again so the film is done and we got survivors togeather from across the UK to talk about their cancer. We managed to get some mum’s and wives to talk and we managed to film chemo and what its like to get treated.

Now we can’t get it all in as it cost a fortune so we are just putting out the most common questions we get asked from men going through it. The purists i am sure (as ever) will have a pop at it for missing stuff but that stuff will be on the site.

Try to remember that we are not actors, we are cancer survivors.

Nick O’hara Smith did some great insite in to TRT after cancer and as ever Steve white (drummer for weller/oasis) turned up to help with interviewing. Our co founder Sargent Major Michael Riley MBE came up to talk about cancer in the Army after just finishing a tour of Afgan (welcome home)

http://www.sitcomsoldiers.com filmed it and they normally do music videos but this is what i wanted, to add an edge to it.

Happy to say that on the second day of filming that some Lads who are recently in remission, Mitch and Richard actually said that talking about it on film was the best therapy they had and left with a whole new outlook, plus they got to meet other survivors and new life long friends so WELL DONE TO YOU BOTH.

So now you know were all your donations go, when we are not dishing it out to different cancer hospitals,or helping men with some funds for hospital stays i-e magazines and chocolate! then we are making flims that will help men with any questions about going through testicular cancer.

The filming ended in an Egg fight on the ground of one of the poshest hotels on earth and a free for all Pile on!  (www.sitcomsoldiers.com won, rematch to be sorted soon)

P,S Music for the Film donated by Doves and Sam Gray

I have seen so many brave brave people on twitter, internet doing things for cancer, awareness, support and so forth. Breast or testicular , Ovarian mostly. Some trying to out do each other . some doing it for lost ones, some doing it because they have had cancer. I respect you all greatly but lets not hide to much away from the truth. A massive amount of cancer we have had or could have are brought on by the Female Pill.

Nick O’hara smith helped me after my Testicular cancer while doctors rolled their eyes at me, He woke me up to the biggest threat to the over all threat to ALL of our healths

http://androids.org.uk/philly.html

Oestrogen is causing cancer in young people, old people. men and women, breast, testicular, in fact a big list. Male fetuses are being bombarded with it.

the rate of infertility which is linked to Testicular cancer-breast cancer has gone up by a dramatic rate since the pill was introduced. Men who have had testicular cancer have low sperm counts and when tested for low testosterone before and after cancer 8 out of ten come back with an in-balance , how is this linked to Oestrogen?, over exposure to it as babies makes us born with deformed or under developed testicles that don’t produce the right amount of testosterone as adults.

Teen obesity, ADHD, teen depression, are now ALL being linked to over exposure to Oestrogen, time bomb folks. so wake up to it.

Men who have heart attacks at an early age have low testosterone, the list goes on, in fact many illness in men and women can now be linked to low testosterone or over exposure to oestrogen just type it in to google.

Pregnant women could be unwittingly exposing their unborn children to harmful amounts of the hormone oestrogen. Researchers have demonstrated that tiny quantities of this hormone, found in birth-control pills and some plastics, can cause serious deformities in male mouse fetuses.

“There should be a much higher level of concern,” says Frederick vom Saal, a biologist at the University of Missouri, Columbia, who headed the study.

Oestrogenic drugs have long been known to cause problems. Since the 1990s, the work of vom Saal and others has revealed links between these drugs and sperm production, sex reversal in amphibians, early onset of puberty and a variety of behavioural changes.

Not all of the evidence is confined to lab studies. For example, many women prescribed an anti-miscarriage oestrogenic drug called diethylstilbestrol in the 1950s gave birth to babies who later developed genital abnormalities

Vom Saal wanted to study the impact of common oestrogens on fetal development. These chemicals include bisphenol A, an artificial compound with oestrogenic properties that is used in the hard plastic lining of tin cans. When tins are exposed to high temperatures, this chemical may leach into food.

The team also looked at the oestrogenic component of birth-control pills, called ethinyl estradiol. About 3% of the 60 million women in the United States and Europe on birth control are estimated to become unintentionally pregnant while taking these drugs.

Vom Saal and his team fed pregnant mice a daily dose of 0.1 micrograms of ethinyl estradiol per kilogram of their weight. That is about twice as much as a typical woman on the birth control pill ingests. They also gave other mice a regular bisphenol A dosage of 10 micrograms per kilogram. The US government suggests people consume a maximum of five times this amount.

The male mice born to mothers given bisphenol A had 41% more ducts in their prostate glands than the control mice, the researchers found. Both ethinyl estradiol and DES produced a 25% increase in such ducts. The researchers suggest that increased exposure to synthetic oestrogen in the womb programs the cells of the prostate gland to become hyperactive. The resulting enlargement of the gland can cause serious discomfort later in life.

“Prostate enlargement affects half of all UK men over the age of 50,” notes Debbie Thompson, information manager at The Prostate Cancer Charity in London. “It can make it more difficult to urinate and it can often lead to further problems such as impotence.”

The researchers say the results are somewhat surprising. Because bisphenol A is not used for its sex-hormone effects, they expected the oestrogenic impacts to be smaller. “We had expected it to be 100 times less potent than the other two, but it caused a much bigger effect,” says vom Saal. Their paper appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Vom Saal notes that a growing body of evidence against bisphenol A has led California lawmakers to consider banning the chemical from plastics used in baby products. He hopes that others will consider similar action.

So lets all stop mucking about and address this. Nick O’hara Smith warned us of this many years ago. More and more scientist are saying the same.

Address this now and we will stop OUR kids dying in years to come.

there are lots of articles about this across the net. hidden and moved around so people don’t put one to one. Over to you

Nick O’hara Smiths website   http://androids.org.uk/

When i was ill with cancer the chemo made me feel tired and out of breath. So when people asked me what it is like i used to say it was like walking up Snowdon . I love Snowdon,the fresh air and wind and rain really makes you feel alive. I wanted to try and climb it again so i put the word about i was going to do it and anyone who had survived cancer could come and join me we would also remember those lads who died with a memorial at the top. I wanted us all to meet up and make friends for life, cancer can be a lonely place but the Internet has made it a better place for survivors to chat but meeting face to face is a big help. Our first survivors trek was 20 people, some survivors, some who had been effected by cancer and even some one from OASIS turned up to walk with us. Every year since (5 years i think) more survivors have come from across the world to meet up and pay our respects to the men who have died. Meeting other survivors really is a great part of recovery. Last year 5 cancer survivors came from the USA to walk with us and wonderful people they are and i was proud to have them with us. So if you have had cancer male or female, have lost some one to cancer, or just want to come for a great day out then please do so. It’s a free event or you could donate to checkemlads or ANY charity that is close to your heart, or just turn up! it’s not cheap to get to Llanberis so that’s a donation in it’s self just getting there to join us.

Many other testicular cancer charities join us. Testicle tour, LIVESTRONG UK. The Mark Gorry foundation.

If you are a cancer charity, feel free to join us and raise money for your campaigns. lets get  our small charities working together.

Info here http://www.facebook.com/events/467184256636167/
Snowdon is NOT easy, but it is not a race. It can take up to 4 hours to get to the top and 3 down. make sure you have strong boots, wet weather gear, water, food in a small ruck sack.