Every prostate cancer journey is unique

KEN

LIVING WITH PROSTATE CANCER

KEN

Prostate Cancer Survivor

Ken: I thought I was, you know, pretty healthy. I'm very active. I ski, I play basketball, I bike, I weightlift.

MICHELLE

Ken’s wife

Michelle: He belongs to a basketball league at the Washington Athletic Club, and he's won several championships.

Ken: I probably have 20 Victory T shirts. They all say champion; I love it!

How did you find out you had prostate cancer?

Ken: When I went to the urologist in December of 2022, they gave me a chart, and one of the last questions was "How many times do you get up at night, to go to the bathroom?" I went, I don’t know, it’s like six or seven. So, she said that it wasn't, it wasn't very good. I immediately went to get a PSA. And the PSA was 39 [ng/ml] and Gleason score of 9. And then the doctor was you know, she said, “You know, I think, I think you’ve got, you’ve got prostate cancer.” But in my mind, I, I thought it was, the benign condition. So, when I came home, I was like, “Yo! Michelle; we, we got, we got an issue here.”

Michelle: And so, we got through all of the holidays. And then things started to move pretty quickly.

How many scans did you have and what did they show?

Ken: They went through the regular screens, which is a body scan, and a bone scan. And interestingly, I had the, I had both scans, and they came out inconclusive. With the [results of the] body scans, I was going to go to radiation. I was set to start radiation, but I have to say that, I kind of thought there might be something more to it.

Michelle: There's a doctor at Mayo Clinic who has lots of YouTube videos and he was very reassuring and the way he explained it is that you don't go to the moon with old technology. In order to definitively stage the cancer, one needs a PSMA PET scan. And there was something on his rib and they couldn't quite tell if it was a healing fracture or a metastasis.

What were the results of the PSMA PET scan?

Michelle: Unfortunately, it showed metastases.

Ken: "You have metastatic prostate cancer." And so, if I hadn't had the scan, we wouldn't have known it spread, at least initially. I don't know how long that would have gone. How far into the radiation we would have been before that was determined because I wanted to get right on it. You know, let's fight back.

Why is it important to get checked for prostate cancer?

Ken: Men, I think as a whole, think that they should be the strong person. And as a result, they may do some things that are not in their best interests. For men who are putting off a doctor's visit for some issue that they have, because they're fearful or they think that there's some stigma to it. I would suggest that men get over it. It's not going to do you in; unless you postpone, and delay, and don't talk about it. It is, you know, it's beatable. 

What is your advice for men at the start of their prostate cancer journey?

Ken: Procrastination is not your friend. It's not going to get better because you ignore it, because it affects everybody. It's not about me. It's not about me; it's about family. I would hope that other people recognize that and get off their, their duff and, and recognize there's more to it than, than yourself. And if you can do that, life will be great.

MICHAEL 

LIVING WITH PROSTATE CANCER 

Hi, I'm Mike Crosby. My call sign is Bing in the United States Navy. I'm a retired Navy Commander and I stepped out of the Navy in 2009. I was diagnosed in Phoenix, 2015 with prostate cancer.  

Michael Crosby 

CEO & President of Veterans Prostate Cancer Awareness 

Prostate Cancer Survivor 

At the moment, knock on wood, I'm prostate cancer free at the moment, as determined by the PSMA images. Each scan that I've had, has made a different impact on the treatment, it changes the management of what we thought we were going to do.  

What’s your experience of PSMA PET? 

So, it's one of these... it's a technology that I think, I'm a big promoter of it becoming more of a diagnostic tool, way up front in the discovery of the disease. It's a very easy procedure, it's a very easy deal. It's just like any other scan or anything else, you, you take a little bit of an IV, you wait for about 30-40 minutes for it to travel through your body and get mixed up in in your blood. And then you go through the PET CT scanner, and it takes few minutes, takes 20 minutes and off you go. That's it and you get the pictures immediately. 

What does the scan show you? 

It is obvious when you see it [prostate cancer], it shows up, most of the [PSMA PET] scan is sort of black and grey. But when you see some prostate cancer, it's bright yellow, and red. And so, it's very easy to see. And that's uh, what's happened with that is it's almost an encouraging mental picture. Because for years and years, all you would have as a prostate cancer patient is a number on a piece of paper, maybe you would get to see the MRI or CT scans, and they would try to tell you that, you know, this black dot is a little bit more dense than this dot and then, but it really was kind of meaningless. The real change now is that you can actually visualize where your cancer is and how extensive it is. And it gives you a picture of what you're really up against.  

How does having a mental picture help? 

For some reason that for me, and I think a lot of guys, that mental picture, the mental vision of what you're trying to combat gives you a sense of like encouragement or emboldenment to actually go against this thing, right? I mean, if you're trying to fight something on a piece of paper, it is hard to visualize what it is, if we can see it, you just have a little bit more motivation to go after it and watch it and see what happens. Compare it to the next time that you're in there and see it.

What’s your advice for other men with prostate cancer? 

My message to men with prostate cancer is stop and learn. Stop and ask the questions and learn about the disease and learn about what your options are for treatment. I encourage everyone to look at new clinical trials and also get second opinions ask the physicians for second opinions. And really that's it, I mean if you've got the cancer and you've been diagnosed, that's what you need to do. 

John Wright: 

This is not your granddad's prostate cancer. This is not your dad's prostate cancer. This is not your brother's prostate cancer. There is so much available to you right now that's going to help you with this. Through everything from the simplest, most contained cancer that's in your prostate to ones that have metastasized and spread, there is a huge array of technique, of diagnostic, of therapy, of treatment. And not just that, but support. Support for you to manage this journey. You know, reach out to people that you know. One in eight men have prostate cancer. You know someone with prostate cancer. Find these people and talk with them. And don't give up. Keep trying, keep talking, keep finding out until you start getting answers that give you good information about you.