From Diagnosis to Mission: Bill’s Story

Even before Bill Far­quhar was offi­cial­ly diag­nosed with prostate can­cer in 2020, he knew he had been put on a mis­sion — to help others.

At 62 years old, he faith­ful­ly has annu­al vis­its with his fam­i­ly doc­tor. It’s at this vis­it last year that blood­work revealed an ele­vat­ed prostate-spe­cif­ic anti­gen, or PSA, lev­el, which indi­cat­ed the pos­si­bil­i­ty of prostate cancer.

“I was men­tal­ly pre­pared to kick its butt before I actu­al­ly knew it was can­cer,” he said. ​“At the lev­el my PSA count was, it was a 95 per­cent or high­er chance to be can­cer. I had time before my first urol­o­gy appoint­ment to pre­pare myself for cancer.”

His was referred to Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG) Urol­o­gist Dr. Matthew Knud­son for a biop­sy, which con­firmed his prostate can­cer diag­no­sis. He had options, and he was grate­ful to have Dr. Knud­son along­side him guid­ing him through his next steps.

“I don’t know that I could have met a doc­tor that I made a quick­er con­nec­tion with. He is a very per­son­able guy,” he shared. ​“I put my trust com­plete­ly in him after the very first vis­it. I knew this is a guy I need in my cor­ner and what­ev­er he says, that’s what we’re going to do.”

Togeth­er, they deter­mined to move for­ward with radi­a­tion. Far­quhar met with QMG Radi­a­tion Oncol­o­gist Dr. Michael Fal­lon to deter­mine the best plan, and on the day after East­er of 2021, he had his first of 28 radi­a­tion treatments.

While under­go­ing treat­ment, he con­tin­ued work­ing full time in addi­tion to his job as a foot­ball and bas­ket­ball offi­cial. He also took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to share his sto­ry with all those he could.

“I’ve actu­al­ly have tak­en my expe­ri­ence on as kind of a plat­form instead of a dis­ease. I’m a strong advo­cate for year­ly phys­i­cals and let­ting peo­ple who are the experts tell you what’s wrong with you. If there’s a prob­lem, they’ll get it tak­en care of,” he shared.

Rou­tine screen­ing is what Far­quhar cred­its for the ear­ly detec­tion of the can­cer, and he wants to ensure those around him are mak­ing annu­al vis­its with their doc­tors a pri­or­i­ty. He part­nered with the Illi­nois High School Asso­ci­a­tion (IHSA) to fur­ther his message.

“Every year when foot­ball offi­cials renew their licens­es, it’s required that we watch a video put out by the IHSA. I was allowed to pro­vide a 20-sec­ond lit­tle blurb about how impor­tant it is to get checked and how I had found it just through rou­tine bloodwork.”

On May 27, 2021, Far­quhar com­plet­ed his last radi­a­tion treat­ment, a day he calls ​“bit­ter­sweet.”

“Dr. Fal­lon and his staff were noth­ing short of amaz­ing. To be with them five days a week for six weeks, I couldn’t have asked for bet­ter peo­ple to guide me through my treat­ments,” he said. ​“They were fun, they were per­son­able. The worst part of the whole thing was not being able to inter­act with them on a reg­u­lar basis, it was kind of a let­down at the end.”

He plans to con­tin­ue to make vis­its and stopped in right before Christ­mas to deliv­er donuts to the staff. A ges­ture of thanks he said to peo­ple who and a place that have now become a part of his life.

“I just have a lot praise for the QMG orga­ni­za­tion. I’ve been around a lot of things and worked with a lot of busi­ness­es through my 62 years, and it’s one of the few places that I’ve ever ran into that 100 per­cent lives up to their mis­sion state­ment,” he said. ​“QMG’s peo­ple treat­ed us so won­der­ful­ly. It didn’t feel like you were going through med­ical pro­ce­dures, it just felt like you were going to vis­it friends.”