Prostate Cancer Screening Saved Dwight Moore: Prostate cancer survivor Dwight Moore shared his story of discovering he had prostate cancer while leading a healthy lifestyle and having no symptoms.
“Several years ago I was in New Jersey, and I relocated to Arkansas to take care of my mother,” Moore said. “I’m a health nut; I cycle more than 10,000 miles a year, I eat a very healthy diet — not a lot of fat and not a lot of sweets.
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I’m a healthy person. My numbers are always good and I’ve always kept appointments with my doctor.
“When I relocated to Arkansas in 2015, I was taking care of my mother, had not found a PCP, and then my mother had a stroke in 2017.
I was taking care of her, and I forgot all about me, thinking I was healthy, I did all the right things to stay in shape, to stay healthy, so I was OK.
“And then a friend of mine who worked for the Arkansas Department of Health working at a community health fair said, ‘You should come and get your numbers checked.’
I said, ‘I’m busy, I don’t have time, I think I’m OK.’ She said, ‘I think you should.’ I said, ‘I really think I’m OK.’
“So, she was at the health fair, it was a Saturday morning, and I was getting ready to go for a bike ride. She was at the health fair and sent me a text saying ‘These are my numbers, I bet you can’t beat them.’
And by numbers I’m talking about blood pressure, sugar, things like that. So I took her up on the challenge. I had my cycling gear on and my bike in the car, and I went to the health fair.
“I started going through the process and my blood pressure came out to be something like 191 over 121, and they took it again and got a very similar reading. So they called the doctor over and the doctor said, ‘Mr. Moore, how are you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m doing fine.’
He said, ‘Are you dizzy, lightheaded, chest pains?’ I said, ‘No, not at all, I was about to go for a bike ride.’ He said, ‘No, you don’t want to do that. Your blood pressure is what we call in a crisis state, and it could very easily lead to stroke.’
“I went to an emergency facility, got the same reading, and they gave me blood pressure reduction medicine, if you will.
I took the medication, my blood pressure was fine, so then I figured I should go see a PCP, so I found one.
“I met the doctor, we talked, and he did the normal physical exam, checking everything out, as a checkup basically.
And we talked about my family history and I mentioned my father having had prostate cancer, so he did an exam and he said OK, your prostate seems normal, but just to be safe I’m going to … do a biopsy. So we did a biopsy, and sure enough, out of 12 pores, six were cancerous.”
Moore said his story of thinking he was OK and dismissing annual physicals, yet having had prostate cancer nearing the apex and spreading to other areas of his body, illustrates why early screening and detection of the cancer is “key.”
“Had I not had the screening done, there’s no telling what could have happened,” he said. “It could have gone outside the prostate, which could have caused many problems.
Many people look at prostate as a silent killer, like high blood pressure; no symptoms.
“I didn’t have any symptoms, but again the ultimate objective here is to participate in prostate cancer month.
Get screened. If it doesn’t apply to you directly, ensure any male in your life is getting screened; if you have a son, a father, a brother, an uncle, co-workers, friends. Because early detection is the key.”
