Fight Cancer With Ford

For me, being diagnosed with Prostate Cancer fit the cliché of being the luckiest of times and the worst of times.  Luckiest in the sense that the discovery of my prostate nodule came about by pure chance when something could be done about it.  I had no symptoms at the time and only scheduled an appointment to see my doctor because my wife was due for her check-up.  We both see the same physician so we turned it into a lunch date.  I actually wasn’t due for my routine visit for another six months.  During that visit a nodule was felt.  While my doctor didn’t think it was anything to worry about, he referred me on to the Urologist and checked my PSA.  It came back low-normal at 2.4.  At the Urology office the following week, I was told the nodule probably represented some calcification from a previous infection.  However, when they found out my older brother had been diagnosed with Prostate Cancer earlier that year they decided to do a biopsy… or should I say biopsies.  I think there were 17 of them!  Each time my urologist would say “you’re going to feel a little ouch here”, he’d pull the trigger on the biopsy gun and it would send a jolt of pain through my pelvis.  With my butt in the air, I remembered the movie “Marathon Man” from my childhood days and thought my urologist may say something like “your father was weak, your brother was weak in his ways and now you in yours!”  Dustin Hoffman got off easy with a toothache.  To this day I’m sure there has to be a better way to do those biopsies, like maybe under anesthesia.  Three days later my urologist called me at home and I was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer at the age of 48.

My urologist went on to tell me that I had a high-grade, aggressive cancer with a Gleason score of 9.  At the time I had no idea what the score meant but by the sound of his voice I knew that my life, or whatever I had left of it, had completely changed.  Sleepless nights followed.  I couldn’t get the CT and Bone Scan done fast enough.  When they revealed no spread of the disease, it was the first piece of good news I had had in a while.  I was lucky enough to have caught it early.  Had it not been found until my regular appointment, the story may have been different.  I underwent surgery with clean margins/nodes and took a deep breath.  Bullet dodged!

Last year I celebrated my fifth year of being cancer free.  Shortly after my anniversary however, my urologist found another lump, my PSA started to rise and a subsequent MRI revealed a probable recurrence.  I underwent biopsies again on New Year’s Eve 2013.  Same click on the trigger with the jolt of pelvic pain and still no anesthesia.  The biopsies confirmed I had a recurrence.  Fortunately, it was localized to the original surgical site instead of showing up as a distant metastasis.  Again, I caught it early and subsequently underwent eight weeks of radiation treatment that ended in March of this year.  My follow-up MRI after radiation revealed the recurrence to be gone.  I hope it’s gone forever.  Last year at this time I was hitting the five-year mark and thought I was home free.  I can’t think like that anymore.  I have to live like it will be back someday.  I have to learn to live with it, make the best of it, live a healthy lifestyle, smell the roses, love those I love, treasure special moments, live life and stay vigilant for the next time so it can be detected early affording me the best chance to keep it at bay.  The fight goes on for me as it does for all those who have been diagnosed or who will be diagnosed with Prostate Cancer.

For now, early detection and situation-dependent treatment is how to maximize the quality of life, minimize treatment side effects and improve longevity, but new treatments are just waiting to be discovered through research and clinical trials.  We can FIND A CURE.

Join me in this fight against Prostate Cancer.  Encourage your male family members and friends to get checked.  Raise awareness of this disease by sharing this website address.  And, support the University of Minnesota Institute for Prostate and Urologic Cancer (IPUC) by clicking on the “Donate” button in upper right or visiting the Take Action page.