Published November 20, 2024
Dean Festa is a coach at the Whaling City Athletic Club in New London where he teaches people how to box. Yet, more often than not, Festa is also jabbing his students – high schoolers and senior citizens alike – with lessons on how to get the most out of life.
Festa believes that physical fitness is one of the few things in today’s unpredictable world that individuals can control and, when you control your fitness, you also gain mental fitness, he says. It’s an inner strength of spirit and mind that parallels physical wellness and helps with life’s many other challenges.
Easy to say, of course, but Festa put his own philosophy to the test not long ago when a health crisis came his way. It was during the COVID-19 pandemic. While applying for a new life insurance policy, he was told he needed to get a blood test to check for prostate cancer. He had not had such a test previously because not all primary care physicians were recommending it at the time. To satisfy the insurance requirement, Festa got the test. Then he got the bad news.
Festa’s prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level was elevated, a red flag for prostate cancer. Further testing revealed that Festa – a man with a resting pulse of 39 and no medications at age 66 – had a potentially life-threatening cancer.
As a runner, boxer, cross trainer and coach, Festa prepared to tackle this new challenge with all his strength; he just needed a medical partner to assist with the journey.
“From the first appointment I just liked Dr. Brito,” said Festa, recounting his initial meeting with Joseph Brito, MD, a urologist with L+M Hospital and an associate professor of Urology with Yale School of Medicine. “Dr. Brito asked me about my coaching and my lifestyle. He wanted to get to know me before we got into the details of my situation. That meant a lot.”
After an MRI of the prostate and a targeted biopsy, Dr. Brito explained to Festa that his cancer was contained in the prostate, so his options included either the surgical removal of the prostate (a radical prostatectomy), or a combination of radiation and hormone therapy. Festa chose to have a prostatectomy. Dr. Brito performed the surgery robotically, using the Da Vinci robot at L+M Hospital.
Three months later, as a precautionary treatment when PSA readings were still indicating the presence of cancerous cells, Festa had a series of radiation treatments at the Smilow Cancer Hospital at Waterford, to kill any cancer cells that might still be in the area where his prostate used to be. It was a long road, and Dr. Brito urged Festa to take it easy during his recovery. But Festa couldn’t be held back for long.
“I would go to my radiation and then come to the gym and work out for an hour, then teach a class,” he recalled. “To me, that was part of the survival process, for me, mentally. When you’re going through cancer, if you can maintain some kind of achievement in some other aspect of your life, then that diminishes the cancer’s effect on you mentally.”
As an example, Festa said, “If I could only do 38 pushups in a minute when I used to do 40, then I’d try to do 39. And with that, you’re beating the cancer in your mind as well as in your body. That was incredibly helpful for me.
“I couldn’t have gotten through it without my wife, Laurie, either. She was a rock, always positive, never giving in to the crazy thoughts,” Festa said.
“Dean is a great example of how people get a cancer diagnosis and it doesn’t have to change who they are,” Dr. Brito said. “Especially with prostate cancer and the era we live in now, with robotics and targeted radiation, people can go on living their lives. As soon as he could, he maintained his physical activity and got back to doing all the things he loved to do.”
Dr. Brito and Festa both realize that luck played a role. If not for the life insurance policy requirement, Festa might never have had the PSA blood test, and prostate cancer, once it spreads to other parts of the body, is difficult to cure and often deadly.
So, take it from Festa: stay strong physically and mentally, and get your PSA checked. “I was healthy in every way. All my numbers were perfect – blood pressure, cholesterol – and then I got a cancer diagnosis. It’s why I tell all men – it’s easy, it’s simple, it’s just a blood test. Get the test!”
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