See my list of famous men with prostate cancer on Amazon.com.

Famous Men with Prostate Cancer
The list of men who have had prostate cancer is a long one. This list is not exhaustive, but we are adding to it all the time.

Marion Barry: He was successfully treated in 1995.

Harry Belafonte: He was diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer in 1996 and successfully treated. He is now a prostate cancer advocate, raising awareness of the disease in men.

Bill Bixby: Diagnosed in 1991. He succumbed to the disease on November 21, 1993.

James Brown: The Godfather of Soul was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2004 but survived. He died of heart failure in 2006.

Robert DeNiro: The Academy Award winner was diagnosed with early-stage cancer in 2003 at the age of 60. He has kept details of his treatment private. His father died of…

• A lot of what folks do depends on “who they are.”  The anxious patient may want to pursue a biopsy the first time it is elevated. The idea of waiting a couple a weeks and maybe a course of “empiric” antibiotics is something they don’t want to do. Another “calmer” type patient might wait months or as I have seen,”I’ll just repeat it at my yearly Doc.”
• It is always reasonable to repeat any lab value that is elevated. With the PSA, a two-week interval with or without antibiotics is something I commonly recommend.
• If there is a history of prostate cancer in the family that would make one more inclined to do a biopsy.
• The rectal exam trumps the PSA…so i the PSA is high and you are questioning the results and you want to repeat it…to most urologists, if the PSA is normal and the rectal exam has…

Common searches about sex that end up on my site and some other various tidbits for you…

• Having sex the night before having a PSA drawn can elevate the value.
• Having sex before the Prostatic Acid Phosphatase will probably elevate the value.
• A rectal exam before having the PSA drawn will not elevate the value.
• A rectal exam before a PAP will elevate the value.
• You don’t get cancer if you have sex with a man with prostate cancer. (Good try ladies.)
• Your libido doesn’t change (physiologically wise) after the prostate is removed.
• Climax after radiation or radical prostatectomy still occurs but the character of which may change…for the better or worse.
• In both radiation or prostatectomy the male’s climax… will be dry or no fluid.
• You can have sex before a prostate biopsy.
• You can have sex after a prostate biopsy…expect blood in the semen. It looks dramatic but is harmless…

As a surgeon I have to often times dissuade patients from choosing surgery. You think I’m kidding don’t you? Surgeons do it all the time. Radiation therapists also tell some patients that radiation may not be the best option for them. That I know is even harder to believe….just kidding. (It’s a surgeon-radiation therapist thing.)

Many patients and their family think that if you take the prostate out you are cured. When I speak of needing to follow the PSA every three months after a radical prostatectomy, I am often asked why that is necessary. PSA is variable in the diagnosis of prostate cancer, but very reliable in terms of determining if the cancer has returned after treatment.

A PSA should go to negligible, usually something like .02 and stay there. If a PSA rises then that might indicate recurrence.

How does this happen?

• For surgery it happens because there was…

This is a shadow box I made for a charity auction a couple of years ago. A clock made with Viagra stuff that drug reps had given me over the years. The guy that bought it, brought by for me to autograph it.  I called it …”Hard Times.” The plaque near the hammer says, “In hard times…break glass.” Ps…should have never sold it …it was too clever and valuable to sell.

• Does a prostatectomy change a man’s libido? No. Libido is in a male is a function of the hormone testosterone and that is produced by the testicles and hence not affected.
• My free PSA is low. Should I have a biopsy? Well, do put some credence to what your doctor recommended. Remember him or her? The lower the free PSA the higher the likelihood of a positive biopsy. When you get  the report back there will be a percentage beside…

When the prostate is removed the surgeon has to put the bladder back together with the urethra. A catheter is placed to “stent” this area of the anastomosis. The reason a catheter is used and left in from 6-14 days is to allow time for this area to heal. In doing so keeping urine from leaking out into the area where the prostate was removed.

So…you have the bladder sewed to the urethra and going through this is a catheter. The catheter, a foley catheter, has a balloon on it that keeps it from falling out. The balloon is just inside the bladder on the proximal side of the anastomosis.

There is a space around the catheter that allows both blood and urine to leak around the catheter, through the anastomosis, and then out the tip of the penis, not through the catheter, but around it.

In the case of…

Podbean thoughts on “sapping up” all you can from everyone before you make your “decision.”

and we named our children after towns we’d never been to….so proud of ourselves for using so many verbs and nouns….

2012-09-20 to Today