Prostate cancer survivor raising awareness on early detection
HOUSTON - It's Prostate Cancer Awareness Month and 1 in 8 men will get that tough diagnosis, making it the second leading cause of death in men.
Henry Grissom from Houston is doing his part to raise awareness about the importance of healthy living and early detection. He takes his lifestyle decisions very seriously. He loves to work in his garden, go for long walks, and make smart nutrition choices. He weeded out his health problem by being pro-active. Let's face it, not every guy is well known for going to their doctor for annual check-ups, but Grissom was sure doing that. It paid off by catching his prostate cancer early.
"It did start out as bathroom problems, so I went to my general doctor, and then they recommended I go talk to a specialist. Then after that, every year, I take a blood test, and one of the items on the blood test is the PSA. So, by tracking the PSA and watching it during the years, I noticed it was going up and when it reached a level that was higher, we had to do something," says Grissom.
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When Grissom and his wife found out he had prostate cancer, they met with Dr. Francisco Gelpi with Houston Metro Urology to find out about his options. "He elected to have surgery, which is one of the many tools that we have to treat these cancers. Fortunately, he's done amazing since then, we try and do this with the least impact on the patient's quality of life," explains Dr. Gelpi.
With his loving wife by his side, Grissom says he couldn't be doing better! It's important to note that prostate cancer is a common condition that happens to loving dads and granddads everyday. It typically does not cause any symptoms, which is why an annual PSA test is so important.
"It is very, very unusual that we would have someone whose cancer actually showed up because of symptoms. That's precisely why this is one of those few instances where we have a screening test you. The PSA is a blood test that stands for prostate specific antigen, and it's a marker that we utilize to try and engage how at risk or not is a patient of having prostate cancer, and it's something that we should be doing on every gentlemen, at the very least from the age 50 to 70," states Dr. Gelpi. "Sometimes we start earlier, if there's a family history. We still advocate for doing it in combination with the rectal examination, but the highest yield we typically get is from the blood test."
Grissom's relieved he kept an eye on his PSA numbers and is now not only planting seeds in his garden, but also sowing seeds of awareness, by inviting you to join him and his family at the ZERO Prostate Cancer Run/Walk this weekend. "It's awareness for prostate, and so I usually try to get everyone involved, the family and we go to the park and have this walk, which brings everyone together once a year. The word awareness is a very interesting word," Grissom said. "So, awareness means many things for many people. For me, it would be to not have other people go through bad experiences and learn from some of us that have already suffered a little bit on this so awareness would be good for those that don't have to go through the pain and suffering."
His doctor sure is proud of his progress. "Henry's a perfect example of how you can see right there in front of you the result of what we do and why we do it. As a clinician, it's a reminder of how big of an impact we can have on our patients, and it's great to seeing Henry being able to go to the Walk each year," says Dr. Gelpi.
Grissom plans to meet up with Dr. Gelpi at the Walk for the third year. He also plans to be there with his wife, four children, and eleven grandkids. It's incredibly meaningful to them both! "It's always very emotional for me, particularly when I go to this run and see some of my patients. It's part of that bonding relationship that we build with them," explains Dr. Gelpi.
Grissom says his family has made all the difference in his outlook. "They've been very supportive with me, especially my wife. My wife has really helped me through this. I do a lot of the things, a lot of exercises, and it's always thinking of how to have my quality of life, not so much living longer, but living a quality of life. So the older you get, you want to make sure that that happens," exclaims Grissom said.
The Zero Prostate Cancer Run/Walk is Saturday, Sept. 7 at MacGregor Park in Houston. You can sign up to participate at this link.