My name is Bruce Kern and I am 57. I am married to Marcia for 32 years and we have 2children, Alexis and Jarrett, and we live in Wayne, NJ. I am the Regional Manager for Affiliated Mortgage Protection for Northern New Jersey and New York. We are a niche marketer involved in mortgage protection life insurance. I have been involved with this for the past ten years.

In May 2004, I decided to change my own life insurance policy. Upon, completing my medical exam, I received a call from the senior underwriter at my insurance company and she told that my PSA was 4.01 and she suggested that I go have it checked. I called my personal physician and made an appointment to go see him.

I brought along a copy of my lab results. He compared that report to my last report from May 2003. My PSA had increased from 3.37 to 4.01. He suggested that I go see an urologist and gave me the name of someone in Wayne, NJ. That urologist performed a prostate exam. He said my prostate was slightly enlarged and suggested I do a biopsy. That was performed in early August 2004. I received a call from his office at the end of August 2004 and was told my prostate biopsy was positive for cancer.

I made an appointment to go back to see the doctor to find out my options. He suggested I have the "old fashioned" prostate surgery and I should do it right away. I wanted a second opinion. My wife and I again spoke with my PCP and he suggested I go see Dr. Lanteri for a second opinion, because he had sent another patient to Dr. Lanteri and was very happy with what he told him. My PCP told us that he has a different type of option that I could discuss with him.

Before, I called Dr. Lanteri, I did some research on my own using the internet, spoke to a dear friend, who is very well respected radiologist/oncologist in Miami, Florida and at the same time I saw Dr. Lanteri's ad in New Jersey Magazine. I called Dr. Lanteri's office in mid-September 2004, and told the office manager about my situation and she told me to hold for a minute and "believe it or not" Dr. Lanteri got right on the phone. We spoke for about 15 minutes and I made an appointment to see him the next day.

My wife and I went to see him and brought along all necessary paper work to show him. We discussed all of our alternatives. We all decided that day that I would go ahead with the Robotic Laparoscopic Prostatectomy. We scheduled surgery for January 6, 2005, because he wanted me to lose weight, between 15/25 pounds, and get in even better physical condition, even though I exercised everyday.

I had the surgery on January 6, 2005; I was up walking a few hours after surgery. I went home the next day. Physically, I felt great expect for the catheter, which was removed 6 days later, and had very minimal pain, for which I used Tylenol. I have had full control of my urine from the time the catheter was removed and absolutely no incontinence. In 3 weeks I was back doing my full exercise program. I was playing paddle tennis and of course I returned to work full time. Since, I am a high energy person with my work and life; it took approximately 8 weeks to be 100% with my energy level.

I feel very fortunate to have met Dr. Lanteri and that the da Vinci Robot is available for this type of surgery, because if I had to endure the "old fashion" prostate surgery the recovery time much longer and tedious. Thank God for Dr. Lanteri and the da Vinci Robot.
 

Bruce M. Kern