I am Patrick, 66 years old. In 2016, I was diagnosed with “breast cancer”. I didn’t know that men can get breast cancer, and at the time, I thought I was the first Belgian to get breast cancer. But that is not the case; there are about a hundred in Belgium every year. After an unfortunate fall, I recovered from cuff surgery on my shoulder. I asked the doctor to take a look at the lump in my breast. A few hours after that examination, the oncologist came to my hospital bed.
During that conversation, I learned what was going to happen. The uncertainty overwhelmed me, and I expressed concern that I might not see my grandchildren grow up. What if things went wrong and later someone had to tell these little men who their grandfather was? I had a very hard time with this. The surgeon promised me that she would make sure that I would see my grandchildren grow up. This short sentence from the doctor changed my whole thinking. I decided to go for it completely. Afterwards, it turned out that I am genetically predisposed to BRCA, a defective gene that increases the risk of breast cancer. I might be able to pass it on to my descendants. I try not to think about that too much,,,. But forewarned is forearmed. The subject, heredity, was for me the most emotional in my entire breast cancer story.
So there were still men with breast cancer, I found out. Some of these men found each other and, together with them, I co-founded the fellow sufferer group Breast Cancer Man. This allows me to carry out the important message to this day. Men also have breasts and can therefore also get breast cancer. This gives me a lot of satisfaction. The board of Breast Cancer Man works very hard to achieve our goals and to draw attention to the media. In this way, the disease becomes negotiable, and men who have breast cancer can be taken out of the taboo sphere.
I feel good, everything has been given a place in my life. Only the annual check-up in the breast clinic still causes some unrest. Each time, a mammogram, ultrasound, and blood tests are performed. I am always happy and relieved when the doctor says, See you next year. Because now everything is fine. By the way, I recommend everyone to go to a recognized breast clinic. If you see or feel something suspicious in your breast, then you, as a man, should have the same reaction as a woman and go to the family doctor. Your family doctor will show you the right way to a recognized breast clinic. The doctors who follow me in the breast clinic of Geel from the diagnosis to the present day deserve my greatest respect and are the reassuring factor for me in my annual planning.
At the beginning of my rehabilitation, I learned to bookbind at the bookbinders’ guild in Turnhout. This craft has given me the necessary peace and challenge to continue to live actively with my grandchildren and family for many years to come. In the meantime, I am retired and enjoying life. I no longer worry about trivialities that used to annoy me, because things can turn around quickly.
Patrick Bastiaens from Oevel, born in 1959.