Hello, my friend, and welcome to Cancer Can Give! in this special series of the Simplify Cancer Podcast, we share inspirational stories of people who went on a grueling journey through cancer and yet, they found their own way to live, grow and give in a way that helps others. Today, it is my absolute pleasure to be talking to Rod Ritchie who is a health activist and a beautiful soul who brings a unique voice in the world of cancer as health activist speaking for male breast cancer.

Links

Male Breast Cancer (malebc.org)

Male Breast Cancer - awareness and beyond

Video

Full Transcript

Rod, I stumbled upon your manifesto on your website and the work that you're doing. What really struck me is your dying for change, we’re dying for change and the urgency that you have in this manifesto, tell me, how did it come about?

When I was diagnosed in 2014, obviously, that's a shock. You are pretty much concentrating on getting treatment, as you know very well for cancer. Then I suddenly started realizing when I am looking around websites, that it's a sort of pretty pink disease, and how does it cater for men.  Obviously, I got to the conclusion that it wasn't catering very well for men. I have to say, in the last eight years, there's been a lot of changes. That manifesto, which, by the way, was written by me and the late Rob Fincher, who was stage four breast cancer patients from Wollongong.

That manifesto has made a difference. When I look at the list of quite a few points, probably half of them we've made progress on and things like the de-gendering websites, adding a bit of blue for the pink and sort of making it more inclusive, making the text more inclusive. If a guy gets over there on the site starting to hear stuff that doesn't really apply to blokes, I don't think that's good. The stigma attached to this disease, for a man, I mean, you, you could probably talk about stigma as well with your particular cancer, testicular cancer, but for a man to have breast cancer, it seems gee, what's wrong? Are you a bit effeminate or what's the problem?

Absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more that the stigma, these cancers, they go to the root of who we are as men. I think that's the root of all cancers, they affect us at the at such a deep level that affects our body, it affects how we think about ourselves, it affects how we are around people. I'm just inspired by the bold vision that that you guys had around this manifesto, and to see that progress is being made around it. Let's get back to your steroid because I really want to talk about that and your story with breast cancer. I mean, because we all kind of have this moment when we when you kind of find out that you have cancer. What was it like for you?

Pretty surreal but not unexpected. I had a lump behind my left nipple for a little while. I presented to the general practitioner, and we both agreed, maybe it was nothing. A month later was still not nothing. I came back and anyway, long story short, the third time I turned up, I said, I need a scan or some sort of and she said, but none of those times that you do a clinical examination and I just sort of wondered if I presented with breast problems as a woman, I think I probably would have been seen a bit earlier.

That made the diagnosis at a little bit of a later stage than I would have liked. I had excellent treatment, just locally up here, and I couldn't really complain about anything. I have to say, as a guy, there's a lot of women out there as breast surgeons, oncologists, radiation oncologist, and we're lucky in a way, as guy having this disease, we're lucky that we can just slip into a system that's really geared up maybe for women, but a lot of the treatments really are just as effective on guys.

That's fantastic. Rod, I love how you talk about that you were even at those were very early stages you were the advocate for let's get it checked out,