January 6, 1999. WELCOME to PSA Rising, an independent site for men with prostate cancer and their partners, families and friends. We hope you'll find useful information and encouraging words here.
   We're trying to do more to meet the needs of people who arrive through a search portal. Maybe you want to find out about your latest PSA test -- or whether you should get one. Maybe someone you love has prostate cancer. Perhaps you're a high-riser looking for your next treatment, or a watchful waiter. Perhaps you had cancer of the prostate, were treated, and are cured.
    If you're seeking medical advice, that's not our job -- but we do offer information and support. If you're a first time visitor, please read the privacy and content statements. If you have a story to share, we'd love to hear it.
    Over the holidays we updated the layout. Our new cover has more of a site-map look. Using it in combination with your browser's "back" button, you can jump through the magazine's sections checking what's new. More to come.

   Len Snyder's Spring
Did you hear about the iceman's medicine kit? A traveller in the Alps 5000 years ago perished, and his body was preserved in ice. Turns out he was carrying a medicine kit -- described as "two walnut-size lumps" pierced and tied to leather thongs so they could be fastened to his clothing or belt. The lumps were fruit of the birch fungus, a common alpine plant.
   The iceman, an article in The Lancet explains, probably used this fungus to treat himself for whipworm, a stomach parasite. The fungus would also have worked as an antibiotic.
    On New Year's Day, the iceman was on my mind while dodging gutter-ice on my way to an all-hours drug store to buy Norman some powder-free latex gloves for self-catheterizing. Winter is getting colder but has turned toward the light now; a time for recalling Len Snyder's signature on posts to Prostate Problems Mailing List " In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.- A. Camus."
    Lloyd Ney, founder of PAACT, Len and two other heroes of the online support movement -- Scott Barker and Russ Ingram -- all died last year of prostate cancer.The latter three were in their forties. If you've never heard of these three younger men, you might take a few moments to read parts of their stories. Look at their photos in Jerry Bostick's online gallery. Read a few of their e-mails in the online chapter on their chemotherapies in Aubrey Pilgrim's book (your browser may open a new window so you can continue here when you're done).
    Battling years of illness in the prime of their lives, Len, Scott, and Russ gave immeasurably in hope that they and other men besides themselves would not die. For all the power of twentieth-century medicine, they themselves were not spared. A lot has changed since that Ice Age mountaineer tied fungus to his belt. We still have a way to go to reach Len Snyder's summer.
    Wishing you a Happy and a Healthy New Year, and low PSA's.