Prostate Cancer Awareness – A Missed Opportunity

Why do so Many of Us Think About Prostate Cancer Like Joe? by Robert Warren Hess When it comes to prostate cancer, we men are our own worst enemy. We just can’t seem to come to grips with the risk and the testing. I hope the story I’m about to tell will prevent you from becoming a “Joe” and, even better, ensure you don’t become one of the 30,000 American men who die each year from prostate cancer. The story begins about 11:30 am, on Sunday June 2, 2013, as I’m about halfway through my weekend bicycle ride from Manhattan Beach, over the Palos Verdes Peninsula, and up to the antenna farm where the old Nike site was located on top of San Pedro Hill. As usual, I was riding Fast Freddy, my Blinged-out Italian steel bike made by the Renzo Formigli workshop in Florence, Italy. If you’re not a cyclist, Freddy looks pretty normal. But if you are a cyclist, there’s a lot to attract your attention. Here’s what gets the conversation going: lugged steel frame; gold lugs – I think it’s real; deep rim Zipp wheels, and Shimano Ultegra electric shifting. Guys make a comment about Freddy and […] read more

How to Create a Great Lunch in Just 5:55.2 minutes

How to Make a Great Lunch in Just Under Six Minutes by Robert Warren Hess I’m always busy and I tend to grab the first edible thing I can put my hands on. My ability to eat just about anything was honed during my Army career. We ate whatever the mess sergeant put in our mess kits because we never knew when the next meal would arrive. But, this post is about how to get create something tasty and nutritious in just five minutes. As you can see from this image from my iPhone timer I didn’t quite make 5 minutes, but it was close. This Day was Salad Day so Here are my Ingredients . . . I always buy pre-washed salads and greens when I can get them. They cost a tad more, but the washing process is just to time consuming for me I like food with a bit of tanginess, so I like to include some kale, mustard greens, and arugula with my romaine i also love sweet peppers, so I buy bags of peppers like the ones you see here – these do take washing I use salsa for my salad dressing – it’s tangy […] read more

ProstateTracker In Action

What’s Good for the Goose, Is Good for the Gander How many times have we all heard that from our parents and grandparents? The image to the right shows the results of my most recent PSA test. I’m a 10-year prostate cancer survivor so I watch that number like a hawk. The image shows my PSA values beginning in 1994 – that’s the 1.0 number of the far left of the chart – to the point where I was diagnosed. It drops sharply after my surgery in May 2003 and has remained in the .03 – .08 range since then. If the scale looks a bit funny, it’s because we programmed it with a logarithmic function to accommodate a wide range of values. What Did We Include Cholesterol in ProstateTracker? We did this because cholesterol value – total, high, and low – serve as pretty good (but maybe not perfect) overall markers for the body’s general health. If your HDL and LDL numbers are in the ‘good’ or ‘optimal’ ranges, you most likely are in pretty good health. Can You See My Eating Habit Relapse? The green line is LDL (the bad cholesterol) and the brown line is HDL (the […] read more

2013 Genitourinary Cancer Symposium in Orlando, FL – Day 0

Well, I’m checked in at my hotel here in Orlando and I have gone through the three day program and read the Day One issue of the Symposium newspaper – all 28 pages. It’s going to be a great conference with many of the best and brightest minds in the cancer battle at the conference to talk about their research results and successes. The first day and a half of the three-day conference is devoted exclusively to prorate cancer. Which, as a 10-year prostate cancer survivor, I find really encouraging. There is, however, a little (more than a little) irony to be found here already. The Expert Editorial in the Day One conference Daily News is titled “The Role of Active Surveillance for Localized Prostate Cancer: Reducing Overtreatment, Improving Quality of Life.” The article’s central theme once again beats the drum of PSA screening resulting in too much unnecessary treatment. The author notes that “Such stage migration [early detection – my parenthetical insert here] has resulted in the number of diagnoses far outnumbering the number of lethal cases (i.e., over diagnosis of those cancers that would never progress or cause harm to the patient if left untreated). I guess this […] read more

JP Morgan Chase Community Giving Contributes to PCAP’s ProstateTracker Program

MANHATTAN BEACH, CALIFORNIA (PRBUZZ) January 3, 2013. “Prostate cancer doesn’t care.  But JP Morgan Chase Does!”  JPMorgan Chase Community Giving joined the fight to end prostate cancer by contributing to the first Internet prostate cancer early warning tool for men, ProstateTracker. ProstateTracker, developed by the Prostate Cancer Awareness Project, is a free Internet-based prostate cancer early detection tool. Men just enter their annual prostate specific antigen (PSA) number and ProstateTracker reveals if there is an increase from the previous year, which is a warning sign of possible prostate cancer. ProstateTracker also sends a reminder email when a man’s next annual test is due.  ProstateTracker is free to everyone. Prostate Cancer Awareness Project CEO Robert Hess, himself a 10-year prostate cancer survivor, notes that he calls himself an “accidental prostate cancer survivor” because he was diagnosed with multiple prostate cancer tumors when his PSA and physical exam results were within the “normal” range. Hess notes that “normal” varies from man-to-man.  The best way to find prostate cancer early, when it still is treatable, is tracking any rise in PSA value from the previous year. “Metatastic prostate cancer – prostate cancer that has spread to other parts of the body- is almost impossible to […] read more

Will Your Prostate Cancer Recur after Surgery?

Will Your Prostate Cancer Recur after Surgery? by Robert Warren Hess If you have prostate cancer and you have your prostate removed (radical prostatectomy), can your cancer return?  If it does return, are there treatment options available? These are questions men ask when they are faced with making a decision about prostate cancer treatment. Unfortunately, the answer to the first question is “yes” while an affirmative to the second question is (fortunately) a positive sign. If you are faced with making a treatment decision about prostate cancer that involves prostatectomy, it’s a good idea to learn all you can about the procedure and other cancer treatments so you can be prepared to tackle a possible return of your prostate cancer. Chances Prostate Cancer Will Recur Overall, a man who has undergone prostatectomy for localized prostate cancer has a 10 to 30 percent chance of experiencing prostate cancer recurrence during his lifetime. Among these cases of recurrence, about half happen during the first three years after prostatectomy, another 30 percent occur from years 3 to 5 post-prostatectomy, and about 19 percent happen after year 5. Some experts say the figure of recurrence is even higher. Why Prostate Cancer May Return Prostatectomy as […] read more