Kevin Shrock

Welcome to my CaringBridge website. It is designed to provide me with a journal documenting my journey through the health care system from the other side, as a patient. And also to share my experience with you. So let’s start from the beginning.

After being hit by a Mack Dump truck in June 2012 while riding a bike, I required an L5-S1 discectomy to alleviate my left sciatica. I tried to regain my active athletic life (marathoning, cycling as a tourist along with the Tour de France, windsurfing, kitesurfing, skiing) but continued to have pain which interfered with all sports as well as adding new photos to my collection of handstands around the world. As a former competitive gymnast, I just wasn’t ready to “hang up my grips.”

After two perfectly successful transformational epidural steroid injections at L3/4 which worked for 2 months, the last one wore off during a 2 week vacation in Tel Aviv totally hobbling me. I got an MRI and scheduled my outpatient discectomy for the next week. However, despite a normal physical exam, my preop labs revealed a PSA of 12.5 and an MRI confirmed a high likelihood of prostate cancer. And so my unwanted journey began.

Lastly, this tale is not to be confidential, or secret in any way. HIPAA BE DAMNED! My objective is also to stimulate conversation not just about prostate issues, but preventive medical care as well. Doctors (and I am as guilty as any) consider ourselves obliviously invincible. We are the worst patients. “Doctor heal thyself” should instead be: “Doctor, go get an annual checkup!”

And that is the message I want all of you to learn. If not for the need for my disc surgery, who knows how much longer it would have been before this was discovered. Ironically, while I can say I know what it feels like to be hit by a truck, I can be thankful for it as it might have saved my life!

So please go get a checkup if you’re overdue. It might save your life!