In 2006 he was riding in a golf cart between tees when he received the phone call that would save his life. He had recently undergone a physical and assumed he would receive a clean health check. At 44 years old, he was the oldest firefighter ever to be hired in Austin and at 55 he skied and umpired minor league baseball to stay in shape.
He was more annoyed than alarmed when a health-care worker called and told him to visit his doctor because of a slight difference in his blood work.
“I complained to her about the co-pay,” he said.
Days later he was discussing his prognosis with a urologist. He had prostate cancer.
He shared his story at the Anderson Fire Department’s downtown station Sunday night. He will stop at 343 fire stations across the country on his motorcycle ride through October, giving his testimony six times some days.
“It’s a pay-it-forward system,” he said. “It’s googleable info that these guys deserve to know.”
Damron knew little about his risk for the cancer, he said, because he never knew his father. Having a family member with prostate cancer doubles a man’s chance of getting it. He advised the men to monitor their prostate specific antigen level.
Damron, who is now 60, vowed to keep his frank talk PG rated, but he slipped up a few times, garnering laughs from a few men.
He’s as comfortable talking about a prostate as he is discussing baseball or current events.
“I’m a firefighter,” he said. “I know these guys. They’re family.”
Battalion Chief Tom Dunlap said Damron’s talk is important.
“Firefighters die of heart attacks, but cancer gets a lot of them,” Dunlap said.
In the 22 years he’s been a member of a firehouse he’s known five or six men who have died of cancer.
Cholesterol and blood pressure are common health topics, said firefighter John Olive, but the prostate?
“That’s about as personal as it gets,” he said. He called the talk “eye-opening.”
“It was very humbling in a lot of ways. Being someone we can all relate to, he made the dangers of the cancer he had to fight with very real. It was not an abstract.”
Damron’s prostate was removed and all of cancer was contained there. He’s once again healthy and back to umpiring baseball and skiing.
He rides on a fire-engine red special edition Harley-Davidson designed for firefighters. Below the odometer are the 343 names of firefighters and paramedics who died on Sept. 11.
He will end his trip at the Fire Department of New York about a month after the anniversary of Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“The softest pillow’s a clean conscience, and I sleep fine at night,” Damron said.
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source: www.independentmail.com (Howard, 8/29)
