My Cancer Diagnosis and the Disease of Denied Prison Medical Care

 

by Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson

On July 1, 2022, I was informed by a prison doctor here at Virginia’s Nottoway Correctional (sic!) Center (NCC) that I had tested positive for prostate cancer.

This diagnosis came after I had been left for months by NCC medical staff with known blood test results showing that my PSA (prostate specific analysis) levels were extremely high, evidencing likely prostate-related illness. This delay in followup testing and treatment left the cancer to develop or advance beyond stages at which it might have been less serious.

First signs

My PSA levels were first tested on Oct. 8, 2021, at which time the reading was 14.3, way above a 4, which is considered the normal level. My PSA level was tested as part of routine blood tests that I receive biannually as part of my ongoing treatment for chronic hypertension. The prison doctor recognized the reading to be abnormal and told me as much when he saw me a few days after the blood tests for my routine hypertension checkup. He ordered a followup PSA test to determine if the results were correct or a “fluke,” because, according to him, the PSA tests sometimes come back with erroneous elevated readings. He told me he would see me again after this second test to discuss the results.

A followup blood test was administered on Nov. 10, 2021. I would later discover that this reading came back even higher, at 14.6. The doctor never saw me again.

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Source: San Francisco Bay View

Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson is an activist, writer, visual artist, and a Prison Radio correspondents. He is incarcerated in Virginia and has been held in segregation since 1993. A freedom fighter inside, he co-founded the New Afrikan Black Panther Party, which was later reconstituted as the Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party. He is a leader in the liberation movement.