SALT LAKE CITY – They’re at a stage in their lives when they should be enjoying a stress-free retirement, traveling to places they’d always dreamed about and spoiling their grandchildren.
And yet several of Kermit Heid’s new friends have something more dispiriting in common: They’re dying.
If you had told them 10 or 20 years ago that a simple prostate exam would save their lives, the majority probably would have visited a doctor, notes Heid, but some would still live — and die — by that old-time refrain: “Stay tough. be a man. Don’t worry about it and don’t complain about it. It will go away.”
“They’ve been brought up to keep a stiff upper lip, no matter what,” says Heid, “and for a lot of these guys, visiting a doctor is just something they don’t do. in fact, one urologist I know tells me that of the men he sees, 75 percent of them had appointments made by their wives. otherwise, they wouldn’t have gone in for an exam.”
With more than 1,800 men diagnosed with prostate cancer in Utah every year, Heid, 78, wanted to get together for a Free Lunch of roast beef sandwiches and fruit salad at the Desert Edge pub to encourage more men to get screened for the slow-growing disease.
He has good reason to care. in 1998, two months after he was found to be in perfect health by a doctor in California, Heid learned that he had prostate cancer. He had just been transferred to an engineering job in Utah and his new doctor suggested a thorough exam since she wasn’t familiar with his medical history.
“Somehow, the first doctor had missed a nodule on my prostate,” he says, “so I had surgery. I was lucky that it was caught so early, but I’ll still need regular screenings for the rest of my life. in the early stages, there are no symptoms. quite often, by the time you find out you have a problem, it’s too late.”
At a support group meeting after his surgery, Heid was shocked to learn that prostate cancer kills one man every 16 minutes and accounts for 15 percent of all cancer cases, but the disease receives only five percent of cancer research funds.
“In October, everything is pink for breast cancer,” he says, “but how many people are aware of the color for prostate cancer?” He points to a turquoise blue ribbon that he’s wearing in honor of Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. “Women are more vocal and men don’t want to talk about it. That’s one reason why you see more pink than blue.”
After he recovered from his surgery, Heid vowed that he would do everything he could to convince more men to get exams. in 2001, he rode his bike across country from Washington to Maine, distributing literature and blue ribbons, speaking to Rotary Clubs and answering questions on radio programs along the way.