Tim was 44 when he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. A $21 blood test could have prevented it

2023 was the best and the worst year of Tim Weale’s life.

The Sydneysider was riding a career wave as a junior executive and had aspirations of one day becoming a CEO of an ASX-100 company. Happily married to wife Bridget, with whom he shared two children, son Clancy and daughter Maeve, they decided to take a break from their respective careers to set off on a tour of Australia.

“We had always had this dream of taking our kids on a trip around Australia in a caravan,” Weale told nine.com.au.

“So in 2023 … we set off from Sydney on a four-month trip of a lifetime.”

Weale had met Bridget two decades earlier while living in Brisbane.

At the time, he was a loadmaster in the army working on Blackhawk helicopters. He loved the job, but knew it wasn’t conducive to marriage and the family he wanted one day so he left after six years.

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Fast forward to their family trip, when they spent their days jumping off waterfalls, swimming with whales and sleeping some nights under the stars. 

It was idyllic, except Weale, who had always been fit and healthy, began experiencing strange pains.

One morning, he woke up with a “really sore” hip.

“I really didn’t think anything of it. I just thought I had slept on a little pebble or rock underneath the mattress, but the pain persisted for a couple of days, and then it went away,” he said.

About three weeks later, he suffered another bout of unexplained pain, this time in his scapula.

“I reached up to the awning on my caravan and I felt this pain in my shoulder, and I just thought I had pulled a muscle or something,” he said

The pain persisted long enough Weale went to a physiotherapist to have treatment before continuing his travels.

The pain went away, and the family adventure continued for another six weeks, before they arrived back in Sydney in time for the children to start Term 4.

Weale went back to work, but soon noticed a pain in his groin. 

“At the time, I put that down to going back to sitting in an office chair for seven hours a day, five days a week,” he said.

He ignored the pain, which disappeared after about a week.

Then one Sunday morning, Weale noticed his semen was “all blood”.

It was enough to send him to the GP the following day, who, despite not seeming too worried, sent him for an ultrasound that revealed his prostate was enlarged.

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Given his young age and the fact he had no family history of prostate cancer, the doctor suspected an infection, and prescribed a course of antibiotics. 

Weale did not think to mention his earlier pains, but did tell the doctor he had been having difficulty fully emptying his bladder.

When a follow-up ultrasound found his prostate was still enlarged, his GP finally ordered a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test − one of the few screening methods available to detect prostate cancer.

When the results came back, the GP thought there had been a mistake.

“He said, ‘I think we need to do the blood test again, because I have never seen a number that high’.”

While a normal range for someone in their 40s was 0.08 to 1.5, Weale’s was 64.

Another test was carried out.

“About four days later the results came back and my PSA was now 68, and he was like, ‘I think we have got a problem here’.”

Weale was referred to a urologist, who organised an MRI.

“After the MRI, they could see that my prostate was 99 per cent cancer, and that there were other areas of soft tissue in that region [which was cancerous].”

He then underwent a biopsy, followed by a PET scan and CT scan.

Weale had been attending the medical appointments alone, but his urologist told him to bring his wife to his next appointment, just days before Christmas 2023.

He was told he had stage 4 high volume metastatic prostate cancer. He was just 44.

“The cancer had left my prostate and was in my right hip, my pelvic and sitting bones, and also my coccyx, two spots in my spine, two ribs, two spots in my lungs and a lot of cancer in my right scapula (shoulder),” he said.

“It was in a lot of soft tissue in my body. It was in my vas deferens and the cartilage between the bones as well. When I felt the pain on the trip, it was the cancer spreading through my body.

“I will never forget that moment, sitting there at his desk and getting that news, and the look on Bridget’s face, because we had everything going for us. When he was reading that out, it was like you were being read your death sentence.

“So 2023 was just the highest of highs and the lowest of the lows that any person could ever go through.”

Weale was told the cancer was highly aggressive. In fact, a new PSA blood test showed his levels had risen to 154 in a matter of weeks.

There was no cure. Weale was terminal.

It was an “extremely tough” diagnosis for someone who had always thought he was “bulletproof”.

Faced with certain death if he did nothing, Weale was determined to fight.

He broke the news to his children the same day he got his diagnosis while driving home from swimming lessons, and did his best to allay his son’s fears that he would die.

“The hardest people to tell was my mum and dad. That was really, really hard,” he said.

Treatment started early 2024. Weale had mentioned to his oncologist that his right leg had been hurting. A scan showed the tumour had fractured his hip bone, so he underwent daily radiotherapy for one week, then went straight into four months of chemotherapy.

Exercise became his lifeline as he underwent treatment at Chris O’Brien Lifehouse.

There he met a doctor who specialised in exercise physiology. She told him studies showed those who exercised during chemotherapy coped better with treatment, so he had a gym session with her before each chemo session then walked home after chemo.

“I could have chosen to just sit on the lounge and let it take me, but I was like ‘No f---ing way’,” he said.

He had also been placed on aggressive hormone treatment to rid his body of the testosterone that is known to fuel prostate cancer.

A PET scan in August 2024 showed the cancer had not spread any further.

The tumours in his lungs had disappeared while the rest remained, but were ‘dormant’.

His team was ‘ecstatic’ with the results, but for Weale, the fight was far from over.

Having continued to work full-time during the first stage of treatment, extreme fatigue and changing priorities saw him scale back work.

He now consults two days a week, which has allowed him to keep up his exercise routine and take on a greater role at home.

With Bridget now “leaning in” to her career, Weale packs the lunches, does the school run, gets his children to and from after-school activities and cooks dinner − all the things he was too busy to do before.

“I absolutely love it,” he said.

He hits the gym for two hours at least three times a week, despite the fact that with no testosterone in his body, it is difficult for his body to build and hold muscle. 

Then there is the other, often unspoken side of his type of cancer and the treatment.

Having no testosterone means “absolutely no libido anymore”.

Having been diagnosed with what is considered an older man’s cancer at 44, he is also committed to raising awareness of prostate cancer, especially among younger men.

Testing rates fall

Weale is an ambassador for the Australian and New Zealand Urogenital and Prostate (ANZUP) Cancer Trials Group Limited, which recently launched its CheckMate Campaign to encourage Australian men to prioritise their prostate health.

While the PSA blood test can help catch prostate cancer early, testing rates have been declining in Australia in recent years.

According to ANZUP, the rate of testing on men aged 50 to 69 dropped from 68 per cent between 2005 and 2009 to 48 per cent from 2014 to 2018.

In that time, advanced prostate cancer rates increased by more than 5.4 per cent each year.

ANZUP chair and medical oncologist Professor Ian Davis said concerns around overdiagnosis and overtreatment of prostate cancer had led to “understandable caution” around testing.

“Today, we have more sophisticated tools to assess risk, more accurate imaging techniques, and approaches such as active surveillance that allow many low-risk cancers to be safely monitored rather than treated immediately,” he said. 

“The conversation is no longer simply about whether to test or not test. It’s about helping people understand their risk, have informed discussions with their GP, and make the right decision for them.”

Prostate cancer rising in younger men

Prostate cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia, with about 79 Australians diagnosed every day. Eleven men will die each day from the disease.

Brisbane-based urologist Sam Davies said it was estimated more than 450 Australian men under the age of 50 would be diagnosed with prostate cancer in Australia this year alone.

“Up to 60 per cent of prostate cancer risk is inherited, so it’s recommended that men with a family history start screening between the ages of 40 and 45,” Dr Davies said.

“Prostate cancer is usually silent. It can lead to problems urinating, pain during urination, or pain in the lower back, pelvis or testicles.

“These symptoms usually appear in its later stages, which is why screening is essential to catch the disease, before it reaches this point.

“If you have any of these symptoms, you should see your GP, it doesn’t mean you have prostate cancer, but it’s important to know for sure and get treatment as early as possible.”

Brad de Plater underwent a routine PSA test at 50 that detected he had prostate cancer. His early detection allowed him to opt for surveillance over treatment. 

“Early detection gave me options,” he said. 

“Living with prostate cancer isn’t always straightforward. Every test comes with some anxiety, and there have been moments that were genuinely frightening.

“But I’m grateful my cancer was found early, because it meant I had choices.” 

Younger men not getting screened

While men over 50 can request a PSA test from their GP, younger men are only encouraged to do so if they have a family history of the disease − something Weale wants changed.

Weale had no family history of prostate cancer, so his only hope of catching the disease earlier would have been lowering the screening age to 40 for all men.

He recalled going to the doctor when he turned 40 and asking if he needed any screening tests. He wonders if he was screened for prostate cancer then, if it would have been picked up earlier.

When he told his friends to get tested, he said many were turned away by their GPs for being “too young”, even after they offered to pay for the test themselves.

He knows of men who have opted to pay up to $70 to have the test.

Weale is now working with Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia (PCFA) to make testing more accessible to younger men after it released figures last year which showed prostate cancer rates among men under 50 had doubled in the past 20 years.

“It’s a simple blood test. It costs $21. Twenty-one bucks is all it costs for the pathology companies to do this test,” Weale said.

While he applauds the high profile of breast cancer in Australia, and national screening programs such as BreastScreen, he said there was currently no national screening program for prostate cancer.

Weale joined the PCFA delegation that headed to Parliament House in Canberra in late 2025. 

“The PCFA is advocating hard to lower the age for testing because there is no national screening program,” he said.

“There has not been a dollar spent or time given to prostate cancer, and it is the number one diagnosed cancer in Australia, and there is no national screening program for it. It’s kind of disgusting.”