On Needles and Pen, part tres

I dropped the bombshell this morning in my final segment of The BizRadioNetwork Morning Show. Told both people who were listening of my cancer. One of the first guys to call me after the show was Jim Recer at CompassBank/Houston. One of the VP’s in his Region just went through a prostatectomy, and is doing well. The man is 3-years younger than I.

Jim’s a positive guy…and he’s also a religious man. He prayed for me on the spot, on his cell phone, right there in traffic somewhere in Houston.

That’s pretty powerful medicine.
And the phone call was nice, too.

Here are the nuts and bolts of my situation. There are three areas of cancer in my prostate, between .7-mm and 10.7-mm in size…the largest still undetectable by a digital exam. On the Gleason scale of severity, all of these adenocarcinomas are rated the same at 3+3. That means it’s not aggressive…that my prospects for survival are excellent. Hence the optimism of my doctor, and my irritatingly positive attitude.

As I mentioned earlier this month when this personal saga began, Prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer (excluding skin cancer) among American men. According to the American Cancer Society, men aged 50 and older, and those over the age of 45 who are in high-risk groups (such as African-American men and men with a family history of prostate cancer), should have a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test and digital rectal exam (DRE) once every year.

Here is why I am sharing this with you: The point of getting your PSA checked is early-detection. Without that test, I would not have known this early of my condition, and could not have begun my treatment. I’m not especially looking forward to the next 120-days, but at least I know that the chances of curing my condition and regaining an active life, for a guy at the half-century mark, is pretty good.

Hey, it’s not great news.
No one likes to be jerked up short by a doctor telling you cancer has invaded your body…but if that is to be, then this is the least-deadly version to have.

I have to be optimistic.
The numbers are in my favor.
Positive people live longer…and I can use all the advantages I can get!
And Jim, thanks for the call!