Paul Haynes is back at work as the head coach at Kent State. He revealed Monday that the medically-induced leave of absence he took beginning on Aug. 27 was due to a surgery he underwent on Aug. 28 to treat prostate cancer.
“It was found during a regular checkup last summer,” Haynes told the Record-Courier. “There are really no common side effects with prostate cancer, so that checkup probably saved my life. Prostate cancer is most common among African-American men ages 40 and over, so I strongly encourage everyone in that age group to get a PSA screening.”
In fact, 1-in-39 men between ages 40 and 59 (Haynes is 48) will contract prostate cancer, and the numbers are significantly higher for black men. From the Prostate Cancer Foundation:
African-American men are 73% more likely to develop prostate cancer compared with Caucasian men, and are nearly 2.4 times as likely to die from the disease. It is important to realize though that this does not mean that every African-American man will get prostate cancer or have an aggressive or un-curable prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer is most prevalent in men over 65 and not particularly deadly when treated; the American Cancer Society says men with prostate cancer are 96 percent as likely to survive 15 years as men who do not have prostate cancer. However, like Haynes said, prostate cancer does not announce its arrival through recognizable symptoms, which increases the chances it could jump to other areas of the body and become much more deadly. The 5-year survival rate for Stage IV prostate cancer is 29 percent.
Get yourselves checked, fellas.