In His Own Words: Bill’s Story

We first shared Bill Farquhar’s sto­ry with you in Feb. 2022. Bill was diag­nosed with prostate can­cer in 2020 after a rou­tine doctor’s vis­it. Since then, he has received treat­ment from Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG). Through­out his treat­ment, he was cared for by QMG Radi­a­tion Oncol­o­gist Dr. Michael Fal­lon and QMG Urol­o­gist Dr. Matthew Knud­son. On Sept. 28, 2022, he had a vis­it with Dr. Knud­son where he got some good news. Bill tells his sto­ry below in his own words and shares how his jour­ney inspired him to use his diag­no­sis for good. 

By: Bill Far­quhar, QMG Patient

I’ll start with a quick recap of my jour­ney to this point. In Decem­ber of 2019, I went in as nor­mal for my year­ly phys­i­cal, which had been delayed due to Covid pro­to­cols. The appoint­ment went as expect­ed noth­ing new or unusu­al until the week after Christ­mas when my doc­tor called and want­ed me to come back in and run the blood work again. He didn’t like one of the numbers.

A few days lat­er after the reworked blood sam­ple, I received THE call, my PSA count was extreme­ly high and most like­ly I had prostate can­cer. After a short dis­cus­sion I ask, ​“What is next? What do I need to do? and Where do I need to go?” Dr. Farr, even though not affil­i­at­ed with QMG, rec­om­mend­ed Dr. Knud­son at QMG, in his words, ​“It is where I would go if it were me.”

After a cou­ple of appoint­ments with Dr. Knud­son, the diag­no­sis was con­firmed that it was can­cer, even though I was pre­pared and assumed it was, it felt like some­one hit me in the head with a brick.

Dr. Knud­son went through all of the options with my wife, Lois, and me, then we decid­ed togeth­er that radi­a­tion treat­ment was the direc­tion we want­ed to go. That deci­sion was part­ly based on pride on my part, as I am an IHSA foot­ball and bas­ket­ball offi­cial, and I didn’t feel com­fort­able going with the oth­er options. I hoped that going the radi­a­tion route would allow me to con­tin­ue not only work­ing at my job, but also to con­tin­ue to offi­ci­ate with lit­tle to no interruptions.

On the Mon­day after East­er in 2020, I start­ed the first of 30 radi­a­tion treat­ments, dri­ving to Quin­cy five days a week for the next six weeks. Short­ly after my jour­ney began, I decid­ed to take on this bat­tle as a plat­form rather than a dis­ease and get the word out to any­one that would lis­ten — fam­i­ly, friends, oth­er offi­cials, and co-work­ers. The IHSA allowed me to add a short sec­tion to our year­ly train­ing about get­ting your PSA checked year­ly. I’m not sure how many took it to heart, but I know in our local asso­ci­a­tion near­ly every­one has let me know they went and got checked, so my mis­sion has worked.

Through­out my treat­ments the staff at QMG have become like fam­i­ly. Dr. Knud­son and Jor­dyn and Cheyanne, Stacey, Nicole and Dr. Fal­lon at the Can­cer Cen­ter are in my opin­ion the best in the business!

I believe faith and fam­i­ly are the keys to beat­ing any sit­u­a­tion, both my fam­i­ly at home, espe­cial­ly my wife Lois, and at work were com­plete­ly behind me through­out this jour­ney. My faith allowed me to accept that I had this dis­ease and that I would kick its behind and come out bet­ter on the oth­er side.

Through­out my jour­ney, I am lucky to not have missed any days at work and have con­tin­ued to offi­ci­ate a full foot­ball and bas­ket­ball sched­ule. I cred­it my offi­ci­at­ing for keep­ing me in shape to be able to attack can­cer head on and kick its [you know what]!! The broth­er­hood of offi­cials is like a sec­ond fam­i­ly and have sup­port­ed me the entire way.

Prob­a­bly the hard­est part of the entire jour­ney was the day I had to explain to my 12-year-old grand­daugh­ter that I had can­cer. We have had a spe­cial rela­tion­ship since the day she was born and they ask if I want­ed to hold her (dumb ques­tion). After admir­ing her a few min­utes, I looked around, when we were the only two in the room, I looked down at her and said, ​“It’s me and you girl.” That has been our go-to line in any hard times. After our dis­cus­sion about my can­cer, she looked at me and said, ​“It’s you and me, Grand­pa,” and I broke down and cried and hugged her so tight.

My mes­sage going for­ward is to get a full phys­i­cal every year and have a full blood pan­el checked. I had no his­to­ry or symp­toms and would not have known with­out the blood work com­ing back with high num­bers. This is a dis­ease that can be eas­i­ly beat­en if caught soon enough and tak­en head on with the help of the spe­cial­ists who are avail­able in our area, espe­cial­ly QMG. I want to thank all the peo­ple at QMG that have made this an enjoy­able jour­ney. I don’t think it would have been such a smooth ride with­out all of your help. You are now part of our fam­i­ly and proud to have worked with all of you.

As every sto­ry has an end, mine as of today, Sep­tem­ber 28, 2022, I am offi­cial­ly a CAN­CER SUR­VIVOR thanks to the care I received at QMG.

-Bill Far­quhar, Prostate Can­cer Survivor