Jacksonville, Fl \u2014 Mike Kazala describes his cancer journey as an odyssey. He was enjoying retirement in Cape Coral in 2018 when his PSA started creeping up. His urologist said they\u2019d closely monitor it. <\/p>\n
Time went by, COVID came and went, and, when it continued to rise, his new urologist and surgeon in his new home of Raleigh, NC recommended an extreme surgical procedure. <\/p>\n
But Mike wanted other options. He says by divine intervention a beloved aunt had passed away and at the funeral he connected with a cousin who also had prostate cancer. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s when he zeroed in on the UF Health Proton Therapy Institute.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy doctor back in Raleigh talked to me about \u2018we can still go in and do the surgery\u2019. I said let\u2019s stop right there. I\u2019m now sold on proton therapy thanks to the book my wife found for me. And I\u2019m thinking Florida. And he said \u2018world class, do it, it\u2019s the real deal\u2019.\u201d, said Kazala.<\/p>\n
The travel was inconvenient, but he and his wife rented an apartment and made the most of their experience. <\/p>\n
He had 41 sessions and, on the last day of his odyssey, he was able to ring the huge chimes in the lobby. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like wow, we did it. We did the right thing. I feel great. I know I\u2019m, I was in good hands, I know I\u2019m going to be living life to the fullest for years and years to come. It was just fabulous.\u201d, Kazala said. <\/p>\n
\u25b6 Listen to Jacksonville\u2019s Morning News Interviews<\/a><\/p>\n [\u00a0Read more local news from WOKV<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download our free news, weather and traffic app. And click here<\/a> to subscribe to our daily 3 Big Things newsletter.<\/p>\n \u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacksonville, Fl \u2014 Mike Kazala describes his cancer journey as an odyssey. He was enjoying retirement in Cape…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[796,113666,794,28,121222,116,118,117,121223,121224,795,349,11796,7457,63870,121225,121221],"class_list":["post-285962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-796","tag-chime-stories","tag-duval","tag-florida","tag-good-news-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-mike-kazala","tag-mike-kazala-cancer","tag-ne-florida","tag-northeast-florida","tag-raleigh","tag-uf-health","tag-uf-health-proton-therapy-institute","tag-wokv-cancer-stories","tag-wokv-chime-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}