Prostate as "Smooth as Silk"

"Smooth as silk," is how my urologist described the inside wall of my prostate gland recently after the third annual examination, post successful cancer treatment. His encouraging, although not very scientific description, was confirmed by the PSA test, which came in at 0.04. That is a far cry from the 8.5 reading I got in 2006, when I first visited Dr. Thomas G. Cangiano, a urologist, who, along with the other doctors in his group, built a medical practice around compassionate care.

How did that compassion manifest itself in my treatment? My second visit to the doctor’s office was to perform the biopsy and ultrasound of my prostate, a procedure that requires special equipment to be brought into the office along with a technician to run the equipment.

The process involves inserting a probe, the approximate size of a pencil flashlight, up the rectum. Unfortunately, the passage in my case was made more difficult by hemorrhoid tissue, which caused pain and bleeding.

There is expense and time involved in doing the procedure in the doctor’s office and they could have barreled ahead in order to save both. I would have survived, but instead the doctor opted not to cause me the discomfort and rescheduled to do the procedure in the hospital with local anesthetic so I would not suffer.

If this appears to be a blatant testimonial for my urologist so be it. The toe-headed Dr. Cangiano deserves the recognition, especially when you consider his early beginnings.

We did not realize it at first but Tommy, his brother and his sister were childhood friends of our son and daughter in Puerto Rico, where we all lived prior to moving to Florida. Pee Wee football was the common denominator. Our son and Tommy’s brother were teammates and the girls were cheerleaders. Tommy was a few years younger so he was usually running around the field making mischief. Amazingly, Tommy survived those years and excelled to become the accomplished doctor who cured my cancer and hundreds of others. My cancer-free prostate is now like that of a teenager and it’s thanks to the fine early treatment of Dr. Cangiano.

Early detection and treatment are critical to not becoming one of the nearly 30,000 men who die from prostate cancer in the U.S. each year. Feel free to add your two cents. We'll have more to say about that important topic for men later.

That's That... for now.