by Michael Nicholson, Company Director and Business Owner, Somerset, UK

I was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer. It’s not something that I felt and there was no pain, but I had been getting very tired during the previous 12 months, so when the diagnosis was announced it was no huge surprise. I’d known it was time to stop because my body was saying so. Immediately prior to the diagnosis I had just planned my month ahead and it involved being in Germany for 5 days, Greece for 5 days, Kent for 2 days, possibly Spain for 4 days, London for 4 days and various meetings elsewhere – leaving only about 6 days at home. It was an insane schedule and it needed to stop. And by stopping, I suddenly realised that I had the most amazing blank canvas and I could work my magic on it in whatever way I truly chose to live.

The process of discovering the cancer started with seeing a consultant about the PSA levels that had been recorded at my regular medical check ups, which I had been persuaded to have following a heart attack three years earlier. During this time I had become open to finding out more about my health, which as a man was not something that I had been previously inclined to consider – so this in itself was a true change and fundamental in setting me on the best course to detect and treat early the cancer that presented.

PSA stands for Prostate-Specific Antigen and basically, in a rather crude way, indicates the likelihood of a man having cancer cells in his prostate. It may not be perfect but it can help to detect cancer early. Although my PSA level was not overly high, there had been a change, which lead the Consultant to order an MRI scan. This turned out to be abnormal and so a biopsy was arranged. His intuition and experience proved to be correct and very gently he explained that there were a lot of cancer cells in the left part of my prostate, fewer on the right side, and something needed to happen. He had a beautiful way of the ‘slow reveal’ and it all felt very re-assuring. Of course the more you ask the more will be revealed and it’s a fine assessment on his part as to where to draw the line, as clearly some information is not worth sharing until such time as it becomes evident that it needs to be. Slowly I am being informed – I am learning.

I am no doctor, nor indeed am I very knowledgeable about the workings of the body. I’d studiously ignored everything medical. I now learnt that cancer cells in the prostate grow at different speeds. A very close friend has slow growing cells and a PSA all over the place – so no immediate action. I find that I have a PSA that’s quite stable but a relatively fast growing cancer – so immediate action. They say more men die with prostate cancer than of it, but not if it is growing fast.

My choice was surgery or radiotherapy, with a course of oestrogen (to kick-start the treatment). There are other procedures, but this is not a medical dissertation. I opted for the surgery and it all happened very quickly. In addition to the first consultant I am fortunate to have two other excellent surgeons who will perform the operation. I am told that it will be a Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy (LRP), which means keyhole surgery and it turns out that they use 3D for only the sixth or seventh time. We chose a venue and a date, and the deed is done. Afterwards it’s for me to stop not only physically but also deeply letting go and allowing others to do what I would previously, naturally and expectedly, have leapt up to do for them or with them or on their behalf. I very much took on the providing role of the father for family, friends, colleagues and employees, doing lots for everyone else without stopping or just being the tender man I am and feeling that was enough. I absolutely know that this is why I got the cancer in the first place – too much doing for others and not feeling it was enough being just me.

So this is when I discover my blank canvas and I have the opportunity to show what I can do and it’s my type of art and my magic. Here is the moment when I can discover what true healing is and what it is like to have such an intimate part of me examined by all and sundry – because that’s all part of it, that’s the preparation, the getting completely naked and open and surrendered. I can’t heal unless I drop the mask. And I realise that I’m having detailed conversations with my consultant surgeon about matters that I never would have talked about before – or indeed would not have been open to if I hadn’t spent time with Serge Benhayon learning who we truly are as men and how sensitive and tender we are, and from my fellow men and brothers inspired by the way that the Benhayon family live. I find myself discussing erections with the surgeon and my wife and he reassures me that even if I lose some nerves there is a solution. And of course I wake up to find that I have a catheter coming out of my penis, so it begs the question as to how it got there in the first place.

The healing is the foundation of my blank canvas because without this I cannot let go, I cannot surrender and I cannot be truly tender and trust what is and with whom that is. I cannot have a blank canvas if it has splodges of the past on it – how would it reflect to others if it were smudged and difficult to see? Don’t get me wrong but if the healing were easy I would learn nothing. I had a heart attack a few years ago, I got a stent, I healed easily, I changed my way of living even more, and then gradually I climbed back on the express train. I thought that I had changed and indeed I had, but I had not changed from the role that I had been brought up to live and which had carried me upwards but was destined to abandon me and drop me downwards with injury and illness – destined to learn what is true. I now know that I had overplayed the father role, taking on too much and blaming myself for incidents and situations that were really a result of other people’s choices.

My surgery has been, by all accounts, successful; the surgeons have eviscerated the prostate and removed all the cancer. But my healing this time round (as compared to just mending after my heart attack) is bumpy – full of speed bumps. My blood pressure dropped and my blood count was low, so it took time to get out of bed and moving and the nurses worried about me getting blood clots in my veins (DVT). I had a large haematoma, which needed a drain, and two smaller ones that oozed; my bladder had to be stretched to join up with the urethra and just when I’m expecting the catheter to go, I was told that that the bladder is leaking and it needed more healing before it could be taken out – far better an extra week or two with this catheter, I am told, than a re-insertion. Eventually after 6 ½ weeks it was removed and then started the process of re-learning ‘how to have a pee’ – which has launched me on another journey, building a relationship with my pelvic floor.

The consultant apologises for the ‘complications’; I say that I embrace all that has happened and don’t see my healing as punctuated by complication. The consultant tells me he’ll have me back to normal in 3 months; I thank him and say that I don’t wish to go back to normal – that I have a ‘new’ normal. And he concurs.

I find that I’m coming to terms with me and my body, and the scene is set for me to start work on this blank canvas of my life because I have felt the healing every inch of the way. I’m still learning the surrender and need to trust in this.

But when I was seeing this large expanse of whiteness stretching out in front of me and gently day dreaming in my hospital bed I had the sense that I was being looked after and being protected, such that nothing or no-one could or would get in the way of my healing and future living. And thus I was being shown that I had put aside all the physical commitments and now it was time to live a different way, to live in a way that would be in brotherhood with all.

The canvas has no end because it rolls over the horizon from this world to the next and from this life to the next. The speed bumps aren’t visible, but they’re there and I already feel myself being caught up in things that may trip me up – but half the battle is to see these happening and call foul and start over, one step forward at a time. I get the feeling that I’m observing a bit too much and waiting to take that first step. But just because there are speed bumps it doesn’t mean that they have to rise up and slow me down – it’s all down to my choices. It’s all down to my learning and my appreciation of me.

Getting prostate cancer is a big shock to the system, as all will know who’ve been through similar traumas and I was in a whirl. And here I feel even more for my wife – it’s one thing going through it oneself – it’s quite another for one’s partner. We discussed this at length with another couple, one of whom had breast cancer, and our experiences were similar. As the ones with the cancer we had something to do next, a sequence of planned events, a knowing of the next steps; whereas our partners felt all they had was uncertainty.

I would have really freaked out if it hadn’t been for everything that I had heard from Serge Benhayon, from Simone Benhayon and Serge’s family and the Universal Medicine Practitioners who have stood by me – they have all been with me and gently cajole me to deeply rest, as have my wife and my sons and their wives, and so many of our family near and far, and all those who as men have shown what it is like to be true men. I know that this is a teaching and a learning and it is now up to me what I can do with this canvas, this future returning, that is the choice that I now have every hour and every day and every week and every year.

My canvas doesn’t need paint on it – what it needs is a reflection and a living commitment. This will be my magic and my art.

Read more:

1. Men’s health – starting the conversation 
2. Video for men on communicating with your medical practitioner 
3. Can you teach an old dog new tricks?
4. Men – are we set up to fail? 
5. Indestructible – or is there another way?