Prostate cancer PSA tests are not obsolete (Maine Voices, Sept. 15). I’m alive because our Brunswick hospital lab made an error.

At every annual examination before 1994, my prostate-specific antigen blood test was 3.5. My doctor said that was OK. Then the lab lost my PSA sample, so another was submitted. The lab found the first, so both results came back. The lost test was 3.5, meaning wait another year. However, the second was 5.8, and biopsies indicated I had aggressive prostate cancer.

I went through the succession of denial, terror, tears and study with the help of my wife, an RN. An oncologist advised, “You’ll probably die with it, not of it.”

I intended to die neither with it, nor of it, nor soon, so I applied to Dr. Patrick Walsh, inventor of a radical prostatectomy. He said my 70 was too old, so I found Dr. Jerome Richie, who worked with Dr. Walsh, then did my prostatectomy. Cancer had started to escape, leaving one of two nerves, for continence, passion and eventual death from other causes.

Five months later, we drove to Alaska. Later I finished hiking the Appalachian Trail to Georgia, and in 2004 hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Next, we flew our Cessna to Alaska, drove Toyotas to the ends of the Americas, and I climbed Mount Washington at age 90. My PSA remained zero, while two close friends died from painful prostate cancer.

I suggest men or wives read “Dr. Patrick Walsh’s Guide to Surviving Prostate Cancer” and, for the Walsh operation, find a surgeon who has participated in 400-plus operations.

Dick Dreselly
South Portland

Copy the Story Link