EDITOR'S NOTE: This is one in a continuing series of articles in September relating the experiences men have had with prostate cancer, as part of Prostate Cancer Awareness Month.
Cassidy Kendall
The Sentinel-Record
Robert Fry, of Hot Springs Village, was diagnosed with prostate cancer on his 71st birthday last October when prompted to visit a urologist after receiving inflated prostate-specific antigen levels at his annual physical.
Thanks to rapid action, this year Fry is hopeful to be celebrating his 72nd birthday cancer-free.
"Back in September of 2019 I was at my annual physical. ... It looked like my PSA levels were a little bit elevated, and the prostate appeared to be somewhat enlarged," he said. "Not to be concerned, it looked OK, but he referred me to a urologist at Arkansas Urology in Little Rock. I went to see him and he basically said I was probably OK, but 'Let's just do a little biopsy on this just to make sure.'
"So on my birthday, Oct. 29, I went and got the results of a biopsy, and my biopsy was positive that I had cancer. ... That wasn't the present I was looking for."
Fry said he had no symptoms, and didn't think he had any family history of prostate cancer at the time he was diagnosed, but later found out his brother had it 40 years prior.
"I advise all those who I know as friends to go make sure you go to those exams so if something is coming you can catch it quick," he said.
After being diagnosed, Fry took time with his family to determine the next steps that would later pay off in a big way.
"(The doctors) felt like (the cancer) was contained, but I went through a lot of scans looking for any indication that it had traveled anywhere else, and we went down the trail of 'What do we do?' ... I had never been sick a day in my life, I didn't know what to do," he said.
"After they told me it was confined I had decided I wanted to do the surgical route. ... The good news is, when the surgeon was through, he came out and talked to us about it and basically said the cancer was more aggressive than they first thought; so the decision to go surgical was a right one and a good one."
All-in-all, Fry said his message to other men is to get an annual physical and "look at what they are telling you."
"We all want to believe that it could not happen to us, but it can," he said.
To encourage early screening for the disease, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson proclaimed September as Prostate Cancer Awareness Month in Arkansas on Sept. 1 during a virtual APCF news briefing.
"Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in the United States, and the second leading cause of cancer deaths," Hutchinson said. "One out of every nine men in Arkansas will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in his lifetime. One out of every 41 men will die of the disease. African American men develop prostate cancer at a disproportionate rate, and are 2.6 times more likely to die from the disease. If caught early, though, the survival rate for prostate cancer is almost 100%.
"Talk with your health care provider about screening. Encourage your loved ones to go for screening; this can be as simple as getting blood drawn at an annual physical examination. That's an easy way to ensure you're on top of your prostate health. For the sake of your health, get a screening."