No blue ribbons / No 5K / No commercial - but one life spared

Since I have been diagnosed I have had high hopes to spread the word about PC in a big way and possibly have an impact on thousands of people.  To date, I have not found the proper way to do so.  Therefore, at times I talk to guys and tell them personally what they should do to protect themselves.  Amazingly, many don't care to listen..or at least don't seem to be interested.

Today was different.  Today I had an impact on one of my employees.  He is in his late 30s I believe, newly married and just had his first child.  He had no idea what a prostate was, what is a PSA is, etc... a normal 30 something year old. 

He thanked me for being frank and told me that he would take proactive steps yearly for the rest of his life in this regard (and also to take control of his general health).  I just recently gave him a promotion.  He doesn't realize it, but what he learned today (and the action he is going to take) is way more valuable than any promotion ever will be.

I may not touch thousands of people's lives, but I am very confident that I have at least helped one person avoid this for their life and especially in his 40s.

Having someone listen to your story can and does make a difference, not always, but sometimes and sometimes is good enough.Keep up the good work.
Michael

yes, good job. I too have no issues talking to anyone about it. Last friday at the gym in the locker room while someone asked me about it I took my shirt off and started showing my incisions pointing out how small they were. I soon had a bunch of people looking and listening.

All of my friends have either had PSA tests or are scheduled for one soon.My turn of events has scared the crap out of em. Can't tell you how many times I've heard" I get the digit test every year" And I tell them my digit test was normal. Don't rely on that alone.

I told someone I know, he's not a friend ,not a coworker, just run into him and it came up. He did not even say a thing, totally changed the subject. Then I found out he told a bunch of people. He could not talk to me but he told every Tom, Dick and Harry he run into. He is older then I am by ten years or so, I'm 50. I think the older generation made this a closet disease and the younger generation is spreading the work so that some else is aware of it, maybe more educated and better prepared battle it if they get it. Just a thought!!

Don't mean to rain on all your parades, but in March 2009 Dr. Peter Bach, a physician and cancer epidemiologist at Sloane-Kettering said in relation to the major study of prostate cancer testing involving about 250,000 men-

 

"one way to think of the data is to suppose that a man has a PSA test today. It leads to a biopsy that reveals he has prostate cancer, and he is treated for it. There is a one in 50 chance that in 2019 or later, he will be spared death from a cancer that would otherwise have killed him. And there is a 49 in 50 chance that he will have been treated unnecessarily for a cancer that was never a threat to his life."

Bach is not alone- many others agreed with him.

We all know about the devastating side -effects associated with the treatments.

I am not sure that you are doing anyone a favor in preaching about the benefits of testing for prostate cancer. For many its a highway to nowhere.

MJ: two thoughts in response to your thought-provoking post: First, the odds of having a prostate cancer that will kill you is not 1 in 50 for ALL prostate cancers -- depends on the clinical stage, psa at diagnosis, maybe psa velocity, gleason score, size of tumor, maybe location of tumor, maybe ploidy analysis, etc. So person can get tested and then decide how to proceed, based on his (and his doc's) best guess as to the significance of the cancer. Second, those of us who have seen someone die of metastatic prostate cancer might like very much to avoid even a one in 50 chance of it.

Hi Guys:

A.  I totally disagree with MJ's take on this and we have debated this testing issue many times on HW.

B.  Good job Jerry!  You have demonstrated another good reason to be open about our disease.  Since I was diagnosed 2 1/2 years ago, I have received MANY calls from friends or friends of friends who know I am willing to share.  I am paying forward for the willingness of friends of mine to share when I was a scared ****less newbie with this disease.  New patients find a lot of comfort in talking with someone who has been-there-and-done that...not only on HW but person-to-person. 

Tudpock (Jim)

Bronson - I enjoyed the groovin guys. Thanks

MJ - interesting, but could you please include the groovin guys so I could better understand?

On a serious note, I think I will stay with my current preaching of getting PSA checked and a DRE at least once a year, eat healthy, exercise and buy life ins. The mixed messages that are out there cause men to do nothing. Being proactive about your health can't be bad.

Newer technologies will soon allow for better screening and diagnosis. They will soon figure out which PC is lethal and which is not before treatment. Until then, I will do as I'm doing.

The stats that MJ posted are from the pair of studies posted in the New England Journal of Medicine that raised quite a bit of controversy. In one study it showed no benefit in the US of screening and in the other it showed a substantial benefit to screening in Europe.

The actual number used in those studies showed that after a median of 9.2 years it would take screening of 43 men to save one life.

But I don't like short term studies because they do not mature enough to provide useful data. And this one proved to be exactly that. Have a look:

prostatecancerinfolink.net/2011/02/13/truth-in-screening-how-many-men-to-screen-and-treat-to-save-a-life/

Simply put, using the exact same study and extending the collected data by about two and a half years, we have stats that almost completely disagree with the first release of the study. And it is my contention that if we look at it again in five years we will see even more impact on the data.

So MJ's post was correct ~ two years ago. But just like all those other screening, active surveillance, and local therapy studies ~ the criteria should be extended to the end point of mortality.

Tony's Soapbox ~ Anything short of that is a story about PSA control and not survival benefit. I do not contend that we need to have population based screening, but rather that we need to be doing smarter studies...

Tony

Post Edited (TC-LasVegas) : 3/29/2011 4:03:26 PM (GMT-6)