"Jeff Liebermann" wrote in message
...

Well, might as well go further off topic. I'll make it quick and
painless.

In about 2006, I discovered that I had prostate cancer.

I got the bad news in 2005, after several years of a rising and falling PSA
and one negative biopsy in July of 2004. I had been watching news for
prostate cancer, so I knew what the treatments were, who was using them and
what the success rates were. (Now, seven years "down the pike," things may
be different; my perspective reflects best practices as of my diagnosis.)

I opted for surgery. When my urologist asked what I wanted to do, I already
knew. I said, "I want it out with the da Vinci robot."

He said, "We have that."

I said, "I know." I had read that my provider had gotten the first robot in
San Diego earlier that year. I was referred to the surgeon who bought the
robot and was accepted as a candidate. Six weeks later, done. PSA
undetectable ever since; he got it all. Officially "cured" in another
fifteen months, eight years post-op. I was probably lucky in many regards.
The urologist was aggressive and he admitted it.

He said, "I do more biopsies than anybody I know. It means I catch more
cancers." (The biopsy has some slight pain associted with it but it's only
mildly uncomfortable. I'd take a dozen in preference to having a tooth
capped, for example."

My provider, having just gotten the robot, didn't require me to ask them to
pay for me to go off-network. My surgeon was the Chief of Surgery who had
moved up through Urology, so he had done thousands of prostatectomies. I go
back to see him every year. He's since been promoted to Chief of Staff but
he still works Urology. Great guy.

"Sal"
(KD6VKW)