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Prostate cancer can be a scary, sensitive thing. Just ask Bob Page.

He’s beaten it. At least, he believes so. He caught it early enough. Still, he remembers the first 24 hours last fall after he found out he had the most common type of cancer that attacks American men.

It was tough. Real tough.

He always saw himself as healthy. For 25 years, he’s gone to the gym three times a week.

Then, three years ago, as a fringe benefit, he hired a nurse for his 540 employees at the business he started in the late 1970s in his attic — Replacements Ltd., the world’s largest retailer of old and new china, crystal and silver.

He wanted his employees to be healthy, too.

So, in October 2006, during a regular health screening at Replacements, his nurse noticed a problem. It came after the blood test for a prostate-specific antigen, known in medical shorthand as a PSA.

A year later, he found out. He had it. Prostate cancer.

“The first 24 hours I thought, 'This is depressing,’ but being the eternal optimist I am, the more I read, the better I felt,” Page said the other day from his office off I-85. “I kept thinking, 'This is not going to end my life.’”

But it can confuse you. Google it, and you’ll find how little quality research exists for prostate cancer. It’s one of the most curable cancers when caught early enough, but no single treatment is better than another.

The treatments work. But some of the side effects — incontinence and impotence — are powerful persuaders to convince any man to stand by and watch.

Chalk it up to the male ego. Wearing a diaper and watching your sex life disappear doesn’t exactly induce men to tackle vigorously a slow-growing tumor that targets an organ the size of a walnut.

But prostate cancer can kill. Nearly 29,000 American men die every year. It’s the second-leading cause of cancer death among men — lung cancer is the first — and it’s expected to hit 186,320 men this year.

Although Page is far from alone, he is not one to sit idly by.

He’s 63, the son of a Rockingham County tobacco farmer. He grew up poor, created a multimillion dollar business and became one of the Triad’s most well-known philanthropists and gay advocates.

So, Page got busy. He surfed cyberspace and looked for answers. And there, he found it: a surgery performed by American doctors who battle prostate cancer without a knife.

But not in the United States.

Two months ago, Page flew to Mexico because the surgery hasn’t been given the green light by the Federal Drug Administration. Yet, it’s become a viable treatment in Europe, Asia, Canada — and Mexico.

It’s known as High Intensity Focused Ultrasound, or HIFU. It works like this: Doctors use ultrasound waves to zap — or in Page’s words “fry” — the cancer cells.

During a three-hour surgery in Cancun, Burlington urologist Brian Cope zapped Page’s cancer. Page flew down on a Friday, had the surgery Saturday, flew back Sunday, and by Monday, he was back to work.

He hardly told anyone about the whole ordeal — until then.

Page says he hasn’t had any of the scary side effects. He feels good, and today, two months after his surgery, he finds himself thinking, “Oh yeah, I did have that.”

His surgery cost $25,000, and Page doesn’t know if his insurance will cover it. But he can afford it. His business brings in annual sales in excess of $85 million.

But more importantly, particularly after his six-paragraph e-mail to his employees the Monday after his surgery, he has encouraged people to take control of their own health care.

Since Page went public, his brother’s friend, a friend of an Army buddy and 25 men at Replacements have gotten a PSA test. And some have even requested information about HIFU.

For Page, that’s what it’s all about. Just knowing. And doing something about it.

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com