Michael Gunville Treated for Prostate Cancer
Michael Gunville learned from an annual physical with his primary care physician that his PSA level was slightly elevated. It's worth investigating, he was told, and so Michael went to see his urologist who took a second PSA and performed a biopsy. Tests revealed that the 64-year old, web manager, had prostate cancer. On the positive side, the tumor had been caught early, before Michael's health was negatively impacted.
"The doctors gave me three options," said Michael. "I could be treated with radiotherapy or surgery, or I could simply go the 'watch and wait' route, without any treatment, and see what happened. The decision was 100% mine. And really, I was feeling fine at the time."
Nonetheless, partly because of a family history that included several relatives who battled different forms of cancer, Michael began to consider the options of either radiotherapy or surgery. "I did some research about the success rate of radiotherapy technologies," he said. "They looked very favorable for treating prostate cancer. Plus, radiotherapy was a non-invasive option, as opposed to surgery which might have laid me up for a while. I started radiotherapy not long after the second PSA test, and was fortunate to not have any fatigue, and only very minor side effects."
Michael decided on his course of treatment independent of any influence from his workplace, but coincidentally, the eight weeks of treatments that he received were all delivered on a linear accelerator machine made by Varian Medical Systems, the same company he worked for. The image-guided Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT) treatments he received, which accurately treat a tumor while avoiding healthy tissues nearby, were delivered at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) in Palo Alto, California.
Each week day for nine weeks, Michael had to lie perfectly still during his IMRT treatments to ensure the highest level of accuracy. "I had to be as inanimate as possible—my job was to imitate a rock," said Michael. "Fortunately, the steps of imaging and treatment never took more than 10 minutes to complete. I usually arrived at PAMF offices a few minutes after eight in the morning and before nine, I was walking into work down the street."
Was he surprised to discover that he had prostate cancer?
"My family has a long history with cancer and so I fully anticipated the day when a doctor would tell me that I had a tumor of some kind," said Michael. "I was certainly concerned about receiving radiotherapy, but I think I took it all in stride. I never took a sick day at work—it was like my body never knew that I was undergoing treatments."
Michael completed his final, 45th session of radiotherapy in June 2009. It will take a few months before he can learn the definitive outcome of his treatments, but for now, he and his doctors are optimistic that tests in the future will report a PSA level of near zero, denoting a complete recovery.
