By Oyero Abiodun Yakub
Gavin Brooks, a United Kingdom army warrant officer has had part of his penis removed after he was misdiagnosed with cancer, three times.
According to a report by Vanguard Newspapers, the 45-year-old served in the United Kingdom for 24 years and has been condemned to rely on moving around with the aid of a wheelchair.
In 2021, Brooks experienced a tight ring of skin around his foreskin and later a lesion on the tip of his penis. This promoted him to visit the army doctors.
Brooks said, “The best way I can describe it is like a ring of tissue or hard skin within the foreskin. When I would retract the foreskin, I would have to pull it over the head of the penis.
“The skin that connects the foreskin to the penis broke and would bleed and cause pain when I would go for a wee. I knew this wasn’t normal and that I had to get it checked out”, he said.
Visiting the army doctors, they diagnosed Brooks as suffering from genital warts. After 4 weeks of no difference, he went back to the same doctor who still believed it was wart. After seeing a different General Practitioner, who said it was thrush and prescribed a cream.
Brooks was later referred to a sexual health clinic and then to a dermatologist. A biopsy result taken showed that he was suffering from penile cancer.
He went for an operation, where he had part of his penis removed.
Narrating the incident, he said, “they lifted my penis up and cut it in half and took a skin can’t from my leg to make a penis head, but it is flat with a hole in it.”
It was also reported that the cancer had spread and will require further surgery in April to remove the lymph nodes in his groin, before intense chemotherapy in June.
