My pain was so bad. The culprit? Gallstones: Small, hardened pieces of bile in my gallbladder. I had them for about a year. Eventually, the pain hit a point where it felt like there was a balloon expanding inside of me. One day, the pain was so extreme that I told my wife, Jodi, I needed to go to the emergency room.
At the hospital, the doctors decided to take out my gallbladder. It was a successful surgery; my pain went away. However, it was just the start of my next health journey: Prostate cancer.
After taking out my gallbladder in 2018, my urologist wanted to see me every six months for regular check-ups just to make sure everything was looking good. One of the things they measured during these appointments was my prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level. PSA is a protein your prostate makes, and it is measured through a blood test. A high PSA level could be a sign of several conditions, including prostate cancer.
From the very first follow-up appointment after my gallbladder removal surgery, my PSA was a little high—over 3 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL). Over the next couple years, my PSA level slowly climbed. By the end of 2020, when I was 60 years old, my PSA was 3.7 ng/mL.
Anything over 4 ng/mL is usually considered abnormal. Even though my levels had not yet reached that point, alarm bells went off based on where they had started. “Okay, let’s check out what’s going on here,” my urologist said. He told me we could either do active surveillance—where they’d keep a close eye on it with certain tests and exams—or a biopsy.
As he told me my options, I was thinking, I don’t know if I want to do a biopsy. We’ll just wait, because I wanted to get out of that office. I didn’t want to admit that something was going on.
But my urologist was a no-nonsense guy. He stayed silent as I considered my options, yet his body language was telling me, Listen, we’re going to do a biopsy. I’m not going to fool around with this.
And I’m glad he pushed the biopsy.
My wife and I returned to the office to review the biopsy results. All I heard was, “You have cancer.” Then, as the doctor proceeded to expand on the results, the only other thing I heard was, “But I think we caught it in time.” I don’t remember anything else from that appointment.
Thank goodness Jodi was there with me. She was taking notes and asking questions. We walked out in shock. We wondered what we were going to do next. It was December, so close to Christmas—how were we going to tell our four kids?
Because it was during the pandemic, the kids met us outside the house for Christmas Eve. As they were getting ready to leave, I told them I was diagnosed with stage 1 prostate cancer. You could hear a pin drop. They didn’t know how to take it that their dad had cancer.
In those early days, I also let my boss and team know about my diagnosis. I had everyone’s full support.
From December through the first couple weeks of January, I was focused on doing research about the type of cancer I had, the available treatments, and where I wanted to go for treatment.
The urologist who first found the cancer wanted me to get surgery. I didn’t want to go that route. Instead, I started going to The Ohio State Comprehensive Cancer Center. There, I began treatment with hormone deprivation therapy to reduce my testosterone and fight the cancer cells. They then added radiation to my treatment.
Eventually, my PSA levels went back down. Four years later, the numbers look good, and everybody’s pleased. I hope to one day soon be considered in remission.
Looking back, here are some things that I did that I found important and that I would recommend to anyone else:
- Bring an advocate to the initial appointments: When you go to an appointment where you may go over test results or get a diagnosis, make sure you have a partner. It could be a spouse, sibling, parent, or neighbor—anybody who can come support you. There are so many things you, as a patient, may not hear when you are in that initial shock that an advocate will pick up on.
- Get checked: Some men are very proud and might brush off getting their prostate exam. But don’t be afraid—it’s for your own health. I was one of the fortunate ones; we caught it in time. When you turn 50, talk to your doctor about starting your regular screenings for prostate cancer. Do it even earlier if you have risk factors.
- Find a support group: What happens in these groups stays in these groups. There is somebody in the group who is going through the same or a similar experience and can share their knowledge with you. It gives you a point of contact and helps you remember that it’s not just you doing the walk.
