Get Checked, Says Prostate Cancer Survivor Bob Templin

As I mentioned today, I feel great. I have no side effects, no problems, I feel very blessed. I think part of it was when I went into this battle, I felt it was very important that I go public. It wasn't my battle myself and I did not know about the power of Facebook and all these other things, I resorted to e mails and I started putting together a list of e-mails that I sent out to all my friends and asked them to please pass them on, so that potentially will reach more people. At the very first, I told them I have prostate cancer, I don't want your pity, don't feel sorry for me, just help me get this message out and there was probably a series of 40 or 50 of these e-mails. Over this journey, I called up Bob during this matter of fact and tremendous amount of support I got back from my friends and from people I did not even know quite frankly, but my greatest issue was it was important that men get checked. When I gone for cataract surgeries, had hernia surgery, and the many-many physicals, I always thought when you gave blood, they checked everything and I did not know prostate cancer specific tests that you or your doctor must request. I feel very fortunate, I did ask for it at that point in time where will I be now two and a half years later, if I had not got it checked. My biggest reason for these e-mails is try to get that message out, then you have got to get checked, do not trust it, don't think you're invincible like it was, go down to see your doctor. There are people who argued that the PSA test is not reliable, that it creates false positives, so what, this is the only test we have right now, I know they are working on other ones. But a biopsy is not a big deal to know and you can't run around and hide from this thing, so that is what I tried with e-mails and I got response from people quite frankly around the world, they said I did not know I'm gonna go get checked and I that meant the world to me because I felt that was the one way you would like to participate and try to pass this on my son because of a history of prostate cancer at age 39. I insisted he go and get checked because with his history, he needs to get checked too. That checked, and he is fine and continue to get checked on a regular basis. So that was my biggest desire there was to get that message out, that is why we are doing this and hoping that we can reach some people and swallow your pride, go get checked, it is not a big deal and gives you tremendous peace of mind to know you are fine, if it catches early. Mine was started late, doctors told me it was advanced and aggressive but we could beat it, and by golly, we did. Some prostate cancers are high risk, aggressive and more likely to spread. Others are low risk, least likely to have bad outcomes. The biopsy says cancer, but current diagnostic tools provide limited information about how aggressive a man's individual disease is, so most men decide to treat prostate cancer immediately. Once treated, many men experience serious long-term side effects like incontinence and *** impotence. Immediate treatment isn't always needed, but right now a man can't be sure if his cancer is the kind that is likely to require treatment or if he is okay to wait for now. What if there was a test that could determine how aggressive prostate cancer is. Genomic Health is developing a new test to do just that. By reviewing the underlying biology of the tumor and using genes from multiple biologic pathways, the test can predict the aggressiveness of prostate cancer when diagnosed allowing a man to make a more informed treatment decision with confidence, taking care of himself with more information and greater peace of mind.