A family trait JR Ryan could do without but uses as a warning to save the lives of others

By Murray Silby

Oct 11, 2023

Familiar fight: John ‘JR’ Ryan got a prostate cancer test when he was 50 because his father had died of it. JR himself was diagnosed in 2006. Since then, three of his brothers have also been diagnosed, and a fourth is monitoring his levels closely. Photo by Murray Silby

Prostate cancer is a constant for John ‘JR’ Ryan and his family, with four men being diagnosed with it and another monitoring his own health closely.

“First my dad had it, then it was me, and now my other brother Tony’s had it and the other brother Pete has had it and the other brother Gavin, he’s being tested because he’s fluctuating up and down,” Mr Ryan said.

“If it’s in your family, it’s so important that you keep getting tested.”

Mr Ryan was diagnosed in 2006, having been influenced to get a test by his father dying from prostate cancer.

“I had no symptoms whatsoever. It’s just my dad died from it and I decided to keep an eye on it,” he said.

Mr Ryan, from Tatura, now speaks to men and their partners across the Goulburn Valley about his experience, and on Friday, October 13 will be joined by his brother Peter ‘Bugs’ Ryan at the Biggest Ever Blokes Lunch in Shepparton.

“There’ll be tables of 10; well, two on that table over a period of time, will be positive to prostate cancer,” he said.

“So if you look at those numbers, there’s 3700 men a year die now from prostate cancer. So there’ll be 10 people today who die from prostate cancer.

“Be your own hero and save your own life, and just go and get tested because early diagnosis will save your life.

“Had I not, and the cancer I got was very aggressive, which they had to go in and get it out, of course. I would have been dead eight years ago. For sure.”

Mr Ryan said his experience had shown how vital it was for families with a history of prostate cancer to do the tests as early as possible.

“If it’s in your family, I don’t care what you do. I think if you’re 25 or 30, there are blokes who have had it then,” he said.

“Your doctor might say, ‘No, you’re not old enough’. Don’t take no. Just get tested. It’s so simple today.”

Mr Ryan heaped praise on the work of the prostate cancer nurses employed by GV Health and funded by the Biggest Ever Blokes Lunch, saying the difference between men going through the life-altering experience of a positive diagnosis now, compared to when he had his, was stark in both treatment and assistance.

“The difference between the operations from my day to now is so much better; they’re so much more advanced with keyhole surgery where I’ve had the big cut up the middle,” he said.

“(Now) a couple of weeks and everyone seems to be as good as gold, it took me three months to straighten up.

“Back in my time, there was a lot of depression; you had the operation, you came home and you just had to deal with it.

“There were no exercises that you had to do to stop leakage and all that sort of stuff, and now the nurses are just so fantastic. They put so much work into the blokes with their exercises, with their mental health and all that.”