Movember – changing the face of men's health

To the Editor:

In 2003, two mates from Melbourne, Australia - Travis Garone and Luke Slattery - were having a quiet beer at the Gypsy Bar in Fitzroy when their conversation turned to recurring fashion trends. The moustache, a fixture in past decades, was nowhere to be seen in recent trends.

The two friends joked about bringing it back, and decided to talk their mates into growing a Mo. Inspired by a friend’s mother, who was fund-raising for breast cancer, they decided to make the campaign about men’s health and prostate cancer – and the Movember movement was born.

Since 2003, Movember has grown into a huge platform, supporting not only awareness and fund-raising in the fight against prostate cancer but also testicular cancer and men’s mental health.  The Movember movement has focused its goal on reducing the number of men dying from prostate and testicular cancer by 50 per cent, by the year 2030.

Let me hit you with some scary facts:
 

• In Canada, suicide rates are approximately three times higher among men compared to women.
• An estimated 1,150 Canadian men will be diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2020 and an estimated 35 will die from the disease.
• One-in-nine men, worldwide, will get prostate cancer in their lifetime.
• One-in-250 men, worldwide, will get testicular cancer in their lifetime.
• If caught early, prostate cancer has a 93-per-cent survival rate, and testicular cancer has a 97-per-cent survival rate.

I will admit I have tried to grow a Movember Mo for fun, but it was just to be goofy, I never signed up for the fund-raising campaign.

That changed this year when in early March, I was one of the 63 men diagnosed every day in Canada with prostate cancer. Since then, it has become my passion to talk about this and inform men that this is something you need to look after - what used to be a test men were told to think about at age 50 is now at age 40.

So, Nov. 1, I would like to ask your readers a couple of things. Firstly, I'm asking that the men over age 40 go and get your PSA blood test done, set that benchmark number so you can save valuable time down the road. Secondly, I'm asking everyone to visit ca.movember.com, read about the Movember movement, its mission and the programs it funds – 73 cents of every dollar goes to programs.

If you can make a donation, please do. From the home page, hit “Take Part” then “Ways to Donate.” You can donate straight to Movember or you can look up by name if you know someone who is participating and donate through him/her.

Thanks for listening and if you see some extra lip fuzz around town in the next few weeks, now you know why.

Todd Thompson
Kincardine

Editor's Note: Melissa and Shane Watson of Kincardine hold an annual on-line auction in support of Movember. The Facebook link is: www.facebook.com/groups/1723244897970081