Cary mayor resting at home after cancer surgery

Cary Mayor Steve Lamal has pulled through a Wednesday afternoon surgery to remove his prostate and is now "resting comfortably" at home, a family spokesman said today.

Lamal, 59, had the procedure done at the University of Chicago Hospital's Duchossois Center for Advanced Medicine after a recent bout with prostate cancer.

"The surgery was successful," said Village Administrator Cameron Davis, also the family's spokesman.

The mayor of six years discovered something was off in April when, at his wife Kathy's urging, he took a blood test that showed elevated levels of prostate-specific antigen, a signal that it was time for a prostate exam.

A series of biopsies followed and doctors determined that Lamal, who began serving Cary as a trustee in 1994, had prostate cancer.

According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer, the most common form affecting men behind skin cancer, accounts for about 9 percent of cancer-related deaths in men.

One out of six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in his life.

In previous interviews, Lamal was upbeat about his upcoming surgery and expressed confidence in his doctors.

That they used the same robotic technology to guide them through the surgery that Lamal sells as a surgical supply vendor, made him feel even more at ease.

Lamal has said he'll take the rest of this month off to recuperate from his surgery and return to his public calendar in July.