Episode 8 – Time for Radiation, Set Phasers to Kill

At the end of the last episode I had made the decision to proceed with radiation treatments.  I went to my Urologist Dr. D who administered the hormone shot and I met with Dr. C my Radiation Oncologist to plan my treatment path which includes 39 zaps of the radiation beam.

The “WOPR”

The machine that I lovingly called the WOPR – a nod to the computer in War Games is actually the Varian TrueBeam™ Linear Accelerator.  This is an amazing machine but I’ll get to that in a moment.  Before my first treatment I have to go in for a meeting with the radiation therapist to get myself fitted and prepared for the radiation.  When I arrived I had to go into a small locker room where I removed all my clothes except for my socks and the gown they gave me.  Next I went into the room where the WOPR resides. 

The therapist had me lay down on a table and she made molds of my legs. Making the molds is like having a dental mold made. A cradle or bag made of form-fitting material was used for me to put my legs into. The material sets up around my legs, creating a mold that will replicate my exact position in the device for each treatment session. The molds ran from my knees down to my feet.

Next the nurse does some imaging and then marks several different areas with ink like a magic marker.  Then stickers are applied over these marks so they don’t wash off.  These mark were on my abdomen, and both sides in 5 or six places. When she was finished I went back into the locker room and looked at myself in the mirror.  All these little targets all over me….what a great look this is.

When it came to scheduling I requested early in the morning but I was flexible if I needed to be.  I really wanted this to be over and done with early each day, plus the treatment facility was on my way to work. It’s much easier to get there on my way in with traffic than on my way home.

Let me say this about radiation treatments, for lack of a better word there is more of a sense of community when you go through this.  You see many of the same nurses therapists and other patients.  The patients who have the appointment right before you or right after you become friends of yours.  For me it was Iris and Nancy, both battling breast cancer.  We celebrated “last dose day” when our treatments were over.  Unfortunately, I don’t have their contact information.  I pray each of them have overcome their battles and are living full and healthy lives today.

The nurses and the Radiation Therapists  who took care of me each day were amazing people.  I tried to stay positive and keep my sense of humor while going through all of this.  They told me they appreciated it.  Many of the patients they see quite frankly are in much worse shape than I was.  They’re allowed to not feel good and of course some take it out on the staff.  My nurses and Therapists that I saw on almost a daily basis were amazing and believe it or not I do miss seeing them. Anna, Ann, Roxy, Lauren just to name a few. Julie who greeted me every morning with a big smile and a heartfelt good morning , you are also missed.

Anna was great, she was of polish decent and was a huge help to me but not how you may think.  Right in the middle of all of this radiation stuff was my son’s wedding and he was marrying a polish girl and this was going to be a big traditional polish wedding.  Anna filled me in on what to expect as the day unfolded.  It was almost like I was being given “The Dummies Guide to a Polish Wedding” one chapter at a time while they set up the machine each day.  She was a godsend.  We had such a good laugh as I recounted the three-days of wedding activities afterwards.

Back to radiation….Each day was pretty much groundhog day when it came to the treatment.  I’d get up have my breakfast…no coffee.  I’d have to drink 20oz of water one hour prior to the treatment and hold it until after the treatment was done.  Easier aid than done.  I guess that water helps to move your bladder out of the way of the beam.

So I go to the bathroom then drink my water….climb in the car and head off to get zapped.  When I’d walk into the building normally I was the #2 patient of the day.  Iris was in before me. My gown was always in a wrapper waiting for me on top of the nurses station. Being a large guy they don’t put out my size in the locker rooms.  Why you ask, because without fail a 75 pound little old lady always tends to grab the largest gown and they are just swimming in it and they complain to the nurses.  So it’s less brain damage just to keep them behind the desk.  Plus, the nurses when they saw my gown was gone they knew I was in the building and probably ready to go.

After I change into my gown all I’m wearing is my socks.  I made a point of wearing the most ridicules socks I could find.  Polkadots, striped, beagle dogs,  I went so far as to wear the candy cane red and white socks of the Wicked Witch of the West once.   Quite the sight.  The girls joked that the only part of anyone’s wardrobe they could admire was their socks.

Ok, so here we go into the room for session #1….climb up on the table and we need you to lift your legs to slide the mold under you legs.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to do leg lifts with a full bladder and not turn into a lawn sprinkler?

Next they move the gown up but cover my nether regions with a towel. On the table I am laying on a sheet.  They tell me to lay still as they make the adjustments.  Being a large guy of course I try to help but they tell me they have this under control and just lay there.  This is where they align the targets on my body to lasers that are being projected around the room. Huh….that’s kind of cool.  They hand me a little blue donut to hold onto, I assuming to keep my hand occupied and out of the way of the machine and then walk out of the room.

Now the room itself is kind of relaxing.  They have large panels that look like mock windows with landscaping and the ceiling looks like the sky.  Music is playing and the nurses talk to me through the speakers.

This is where the WOPR goes to work.  This huge machine actually rotates around me. It has several different arms that perform different functions be it scanning, xrays, delivering the beam and so on.

I’m lying on the table as the therapists’ image my bladder to make sure I have enough water in there.  If not they stop and have you drink more water and then wait and that just messes up everyone’s schedule.  I never had too little water.

So I’m laying on the table and then all of a sudden there is one minor adjustment to the table.  Consider that the final adjustment.  The machine rotates around you and if you can imagine a clock face the beam starts around the five’oclock position and rotates around your body clockwise stopping periodically and delivering the zap.  I may be wrong but I think it makes six different stops going around my body delivering a zap of around 25 seconds each time.  Don’t quote me on that part.  And with that it’s all done.  The room is still and quiet for a few minutes and then the therapist comes in and gives the happy news….All right, your all done.

They help me up and they it’s a sprint to the restroom…the most rewarding pee of the day I can tell you that.  After that, change into my work clothes and head off to work and then peeing again as soon as I get into the building. Whew…That’s how the next two months were set to unfold.

I’m not positive but I’m pretty sure anyone going through this has some type of countdown calendar to know when all of this is going to be done with.  Be it written down, numbers on a board, on your phone.  Rare is the person going “was this treatment number 22 or 23…I just cant remember”.

Everything was going along smoothly until one morning when the WOPR was a bit slow in waking up.  When I got there they were already a half hour behind. Great…I standing there with a full bladder not exactly knowing when it would be my turn.  Finally I hit critical mass…I told the nurse I had to pee.  I cant hold it any longer.  They let me go but I had to drink again because my turn wouldn’t be too long of a wait.  I relieved myself..thank goodness and then hit the water fountain and started drinking again.  Apparently with too much reckless abandon.  I drank way too much water.  When they got me on the table it was the first time I thought I was going to burst.  The therapist noticed my feet twitching and that was the first time I had done that.  She knew I was in a bad state. Through the speaker then told me they were hurrying….when the got me up I had sharp pains in my abdomen….I hobbled to the bathroom and went.  They apologized for the day.  I was my fault not theirs I told them, I should have known my bladder wasn’t completely empty when I refilled.  Remember on a normal day I pee at the end of treatment and again when I get to work and that’s without drinking anything in between.

For the next few treatments it was the same thing with the pain at the end plus I was peeing much more frequently.  I finally I mentioned it to the nurse and we met with the doctor.  The thinking was I stretched my bladder too far.  He advised me to take Azos for a few days to see if it will settle down.  Azos is an over the counter drug for people with bladder issues.  It worked for me within the first couple of days, here’s the thing it has one wicked side effect.  It turns your pee orange…I don’t mean a tinge of orange I mean Orange Crush orange. An it stains everything it comes in contact with.  So if you take this stuff….don’t dribble.

As for the radiation I really didn’t experience any of the side effects they list..

Such as:

Frequent urination

Difficult or painful urination

Blood in the urine

Urinary leakage

Abdominal cramping

Diarrhea

Painful bowel movements

Rectal bleeding

Rectal leaking

Secondary cancers in the region of the radiation

Skin reactions (similar to a sunburn) – I didn’t have this but my nurse Roxy drilled into me to use a certain type of Aloe Vera every night to moisturize the areas of the beam pattern.

Sexual dysfunction, including diminished erectile function or decrease in the volume of semen – Now this is a bit more complicated to talk about.  In episode 6 I listed the side effects from the hormone shot and I mentioned I did experience more than a few of them.

Such as…..

Reduced or absent sexual desire – Check.  This was so weird.  You could have paraded the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders into my living room and I’d be like “Is that the new Harbor Freight Tool Catalog???  Lookie sledgehammers are on sale!”  Zero interest in sex as a mater of fact it was a huge turn off for me.

Hot flashes, Check!  When my wife went through the change, I joked that in bed at night the covers were on the bed, off the bed, back on the bed, then back off the bed.  I coined the phrase spooning with the Beagle because I huddled up with Scooter for heat during this period.  Take it from me guys it’s real and it never happens at a convenient time.  The worst hot flash for me occurred in church of all things…I’m sitting in the pew….I whisper honey is it hot in here….it’s December….I start fanning myself with the song sheet…..holy crap I have to get out of here…yes I walk out of church over a hot flash. Standing outside in a Chicago December.  They are real!!!

Breast tenderness – Check

Decreased mental sharpness – How do you know this is happening?  I started playing games on my iPad to help me keep focus

Loss of muscle mass – Check, things I could do with ease before I couldn’t do anymore. Physically I couldn’t do it.

Weight gain – Check

Fatigue – Big Check…..Fatigue creeps in and wears you down over time.  This is a side effect of both the radiation and hormone shot.  I didn’t realize how fatigued I was until all this treatment came to an end. Say you lose 1% of your energy a day and it’s almost unnoticeable at first but over time you’re just too wore out.

Arthritis flares – This was one of the most painful things I had to go through.  My knees, both of them felt like they were on fire.  Pain killers didn’t work the only thing that gave me relief was ice and elevation.  I was so miserable at night I moved into the guest room.  I’m packing pillows underneath just trying to get comfortable. Scooter was a saint, he’d let me prop my legs up on him at night…he liked to sleep under the covers.  Again he never left my side during all of this.  I’d get so angry at myself for forgetting my glasses upstairs or forgetting my phone in my car and I’d have to walk back out to get them.  Walking upstairs was agony.

Depression – Check…No energy, pain in my legs, indifferent to sex. Thinking that this was going to be my new normal was not making me happy.  I can’t do any of the things that make me happy, hiking, biking, working in the yard, sharing special moments with my wife.

If there is one thing, I can now sympathize with it’s woman in menopause.  Having been a guy in manaopause I have a new understanding of what they go through and it’s not fun.

Back to radiation….for about the first 29 treatments it was all the same.  Once a week the session was a bit longer because they were doing some type of imaging on me. 

I know this sounds silly but about midway through the sessions I noticed the door to the room or being more precise I noticed the thickness of the door.  Holy crap it’s more than a foot thick, that’s when it dawned on me that some serious stuff is being administered in this room.

For about the last ten treatments that pattern of the machine changed, now it didn’t make little stops along the way, it was just one continuous circle around me.  These treatments were much faster, maybe 30 seconds of phasers set to kill at this point. 

My last treatment was on December 18th, one week before Christmas.  I was so thankful for the care that the nurses and the therapists gave me I bought all of them Christmas gifts…Trader Joe’s Cookies and Tennessee Moonshine.  As I said I was sorry to say goodbye to the staff but not to the radiation.

So here we go…next PSA test is in 30 days…and what were those results?  I received a note through MyChart from Dr C. “Good news, your PSA is undetectable.”

At last.   I’m not kidding myself.  I may not be done with cancer in my lifetime but for the moment it’s in check.  I’ve had three more PSA tests since January and as recent as November 2020 my PSA is still undetectable.

All of the side effects have mostly gone away.  My energy is back, so is my strength and those cheerleaders are looking appealing again.

When I started this project my one and only goal is to get more men to go to their doctor.  Get yourself checked.  Prostate cancer does not have to be a death sentence.  I hope this story motivates you to do that.

Yeah,  Prostate Cancer Sucks but there is always hope.  And this, this was my story.

If you liked this podcast please help others find us by leaving a star rating on Apple Podcast.  If you didn’t like the podcast or a motivated to give me only a couple of stars please send me a note tell me how I can make the show better. Just leaving a couple of stars doesn’t help me to improve anything. You can contact me through our website prostatecancersucks.com

Thanks for listening. Stay healthy out there guys.

Episode 7 – Round Two, Getting Ready

Hello and welcome to the podcast.  Sometimes I may try to be more clever than my own good and I think that may have happened with Episode 5 – Good ol’ Boys Were Drinking Whisky and Rye…..I see the analytics for the downloads and I can see people listening to episodes 1,2,3,4,and then they jump to 6 skipping 5.  I think I know why….it’s the title. Because the next line in American Pie after Whiskey and Rye is singin this will be the day that I die.  No one dies in Episode 5.  I assure you of that.  The episode is all about leading up to surgery day and the morning of surgery I couldn’t shake the song American Pie out of my head.  Actually, Episode 5 is kind of an important episode moving the story forward.  Some of this episode may not make much sense if you skipped Episode 5.  Please go back and listen to it if you skipped it. 

As I mentioned in the last episode my surgery was on September 24th, my catheter came out two weeks later and I returned to my office on October 11th.  In between all that came conversations with the doctor regarding the pathology report.  After surgery my doctor felt the cancer was “encapsulated” his words not mine within the prostate. The pathology report would later show that there was one little area almost like a tentacle that extended beyond the margin.  Tentacle is my word not the doctors so please no cards or letters.  Dammit, I thought…this might not be over just yet.

When I went back to work Team Chuck was there to greet me, outside of my office was this huge “W” flag with the light blue Prostate Cancer Awareness ribbon in the middle and Team Chuck a across the top and “No one Fights Alone” across the bottom.  For those of you unfamiliar with the “W” flag, it’s very well-known in Chicago.  At Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs when the Cubs won they would hoist a white flag up the flagpole in the outfield with the letter “W” so that everyone on their way home from work either driving by or riding the elevated train knew the Cubs won.  They also had a blue flag with a white “L” but we don’t talk about that one.

My coworkers greeted me with the light blue hats and well-wishes….it was quite the moving experience and one I’ll never forget.  I am truly blessed to have worked with these people.  Of course Mike and Bill, especially Bill greeted me with huge bear hugs. He and his wife made the flag…I’m guessing more his wife than him.  We sat down and talked for a while recounting what all I had gone through and how much I really appreciated all of their support. It really helped me to get through some tough days.

November 6th was my next follow-up visit with my doctor.  Everything at this point is progressing well.  Incontinence is not too big of an issue, erections seem to be ok…they could use some help so Viagra was prescribed.  As the doctor explained, blood flow is crucial to that part of your body. You need to exercise it just like any other muscle in your body.  Even if that means without a partner. So for the Seinfeld fans out there you need to become “Master of your own Domain” or for the non-Seinfeld people out there….use it like a 12 year old with a Playboy.

I head to the pharmacy to get my prescription for Viagra filled.  There is a young girl behind the counter taking care of me.  She grabs my prescription and sheepishly comes up to the counter. “Mr Schmidt, I’m sorry to say that your insurance only covers six of these pills per month”.  I laughed, I said “Sweetie I’ve been married for 35 years that’s a two year supply at this point.”  The actual Pharmacist who is a bit older was in the back and  heard me and she was laughing but this little girl was dumbstruck.

With that the next visit will be in 3 months, early February 2019, my next PSA test will occur in late January prior to the visit.  That’s great, I can enjoy the holidays during this period.

During this period my youngest son had gotten engaged and moved out taking his dog Jack with him.  Jack is an English Cream Long-haired Dachshund that my wife was quite fond of.  He was born with only one eye thus the name One Eyed Jack.  Jack is the Bob Marley of the dog world, the most laid back little dog you’ve ever met.  Jack had lived with us since he was a puppy. My wife was crushed when he left and so was Scooter.  So I made the decision and added a puppy to the mix.  A Beagle/Labrador we named Winston. He’s a great dog and he and Scooter became thick as thieves.

Let’s fast forward to the holidays, after all I had been through this was an especially satisfying holiday season seeing all of the family.  Toasting to good health and togetherness.  Facing cancer really helps you to put little petty differences into perspective.  I was relishing this time as a family.

Bill Kappel

On to January.  January 26th 2019….one of the worst days of my life….was my next PSA test.  I got up early and headed to the clinic to get my blood draw for my PSA test.  I headed over to grab a coffee at Dunkin Donuts and then over to Home Depot to grab a battery for my drill, While standing in front of the Ryobi power tools my phone rang….it was a co-worker Joe who would never call me early on a Saturday morning….”Where are you? Can you talk?”  I said I was at Home Depot and yeah I could talk….”Chuck I have bad news….there was a long pause….Bill Kappel was killed by a drunk driver while on vacation in South Carolina”.  I was speechless.  This was a true Big Chill moment if you ever saw the movie. I loved this guy.  He was like a son to me.  A huge supporter during my cancer fight. He had gotten married a year earlier, just bought a house, got a big promotion at work…all snuffed out by a drunk on a late night bender who blew a red light and hit the car Bill was in so hard it was driven into a building.  Bill died at the scene. I then had to call Bill’s friends because I had a closer relationship to them. All the calls were made from the Home Depot parking lot.  Home Depot will never be the same for me.

Back to my story….

The results came back two days later in the MyChart app and my PSA was 0.16.  At first, I was happy I had gone from an adjusted PSA of 5.20 down to 0.16…then it sank in….my PSA should be zero.  How can I have PSA without a prostate? Crap, the monster is on the loose.

So back into see Doctor D on Feb 8th and he explained again about that one little area of concern from pathology but also explained it’s not uncommon to still have some trace PSA after the surgery.  Let’s continue to test the PSA at shorter interval to see where it goes.  From January 2019 to September 2019 my PSA was test 4 times and it rose from 0.16 to 0.24.  We’re not going in the right direction. 

This right here is why I chose the treatment path that I did.  Start with surgery and send in the cavalry via radiation if anything was left over.  Unfortunately, that’s how it looks as if I have to proceed.  I met with Dr. D in September we had discussions about next steps…we could wait and see how this goes or we could go to radiation next. I didn’t want to wait in my mind what am I waiting for? I don’t want to be in a woulda, coulda, shoulda situation.  I made the decision to go ahead with radiation.

The next step were explained.  Make an appointment with Dr. C who I had met during my round-robin interviews earlier and determine the course of treatment.  If radiation is recommended, I needed to come back to Dr. D and receive a hormone shot first before the radiation starts.  The hormone shot lowers your testosterone levels, prostate cancer feeds off the testosterone.  If you remove the testosterone there is nothing to feed off so you weaken the cancer and the radiation is more effective.

So I go to Dr. D for the shot and in no uncertain terms he explains the possible side effects….

Possible side effects from lower levels of hormones such as testosterone. These side effects can include:

Reduced or absent sexual desire

Erectile dysfunction (impotence)

Shrinkage of testicles and penis

Hot flashes, which may get better or go away with time

Breast tenderness and growth of breast tissue (gynecomastia)

Osteoporosis (bone thinning), which can lead to broken bones

Anemia (low red blood cell counts)

Decreased mental sharpness

Loss of muscle mass

Weight gain

Fatigue

Increased cholesterol levels

Depression

One more in my case which is not on that list was arthritis flares.

That’s quite a list right?  I will say I experienced more than a few of these but I’ll talk about that a bit later.

When I ok’d the treatment I had to sign off on the forms and in came the nurse with two syringes. Dr D explained the first shot will be to numb the area so we can give you the second shot…..WHAT THE F……..where do I get this shot?  You’ll be getting this in your stomach.  WHAT???????   Not into your stomach, into the fatty area around your stomach…..like that’s better???

The shots proceed, again this sounds much worse than it actually was….

Back to see Dr. C.  My treatment plan will be 39 doses of radiation…they will go from Monday through Friday with the weekends off….you will need to come in for a preliminary meeting to prep you for the machine and then we move on to the treatment plan…..and so my fight with prostate cancer continues.

Next time on Prostate Cancer Sucks but there is Always hope…..well this is a good look….time to meet the Whopper….manopause, it’s a thing.

Episode 6 – After Surgery, Thank God for the SnoozeMaster and Late Night Hee Haw

Before we begin this episode, I need to correct an error from the last episode.  I sent you to the Prostate Cancer Foundation website for some great resources but in speaking too quickly I said PCF.com. I should have said PCF.org. PCF.com is the web address for the Pacific Coast Feather Company who makes wonderful pillows and comforters but is not very helpful with advice on prostate cancer. Sorry about that. PCF.org is where you want to go.

Several years before my surgery I had an accident on a two wheeled vehicle, I’d like say it was a Harley or I wiped out on my bicycle while getting a great work out, no the truth was I fell off my wife’s scooter while going down my own street. I fell off landed on my right shoulder which them jammed my arm into my ribs and I really messed up my ribs.  I have a new appreciation for QB’s that put on a flack jacket and play with injured ribs.  I went to the doctor and he prescribed Percocet for me.  This happened on Saturday, so I took the meds Saturday and Sunday but I had to drive to Minneapolis on Monday for an awards dinner on Tuesday.  So I skipped Monday until I got into town, once I got there other people would drive for me.  Monday was fine I got back on the painkiller once I got into town. Tuesday back on the painkillers during the day then I hosted the dinner and all was well until later in the evening. I wasn’t feeling well.  I couldn’t go to the bathroom…#2 not #1.  #1 is never a problem for me.  After talking with my wife that night she shared with me that constipation is a side effect from taking Percocet.  Great.  By 1:00am I’m in agony.  I sought out a 24 Walgreens.  The weather was horrible, thunder, lightning and pouring rain but it didn’t matter, I needed relief.  I made my purchase and headed back to the hotel.  You never realize how much you use your rib cage to perform almost every task.  A sneeze could bring tears as could a cough.  OK, I send in the troops and then a little while later time to go. Now I’m sure the people in the surrounding rooms thought there was a murder taking place as I bore down to have a movement.  Oh my gosh, what agony….never again.  I told everyone that since I wasn’t driving the rest of the week I’d be medicating with alcohol.

So what does that story have to do with my surgery?  Let me get you back up to speed.

As I mentioned at the end of the previous episode I woke up in recovery three and a half hours later than I should have then I blacked out again.  I finally woke up in my hospital room.  My wife was there as were my kids.  

Sure enough IV’s are still stuck in me as are other monitors.  I realized I had a catheter in me which was expected. A drain for the blood that I wasn’t expecting. There are sleeves on my legs that feel like they are squeezing then releasing pressure.  I guess that’s for circulation and blood clots. One of the machines was the morphine drip for the pain.  Now the nurses tell you don’t be afraid to us the drip, stay ahead of the pain if you fall behind the pain will be much worse.  Meanwhile you have the doctors saying, lay off the pain killers we need you to move your bowels before you home.  Immediately I’m taken back to that night at the Minneapolis Embassy Suite.  Oh hell no I’m not going through any of that again.

I asked my wife what kind of complications were there? What happened?  They informed her at noon that the surgery was going fine but it was taking longer than they thought because I was large.  Seriously?  Three extra hours because I was fat?  Whatever, just as long as it went well.  Doctor D came in explained that the surgery went well, they felt pretty good about the clean margins.  Again we’ll have to wait for pathology. Get some rest..don’t overdue the pain killers we need you to poop before you go.

My wife and kids are there but I can tell their tired, so I ask them to leave, I’ll be fine. 

Soon after my family left in came the nurse, time to walk.  Getting me out of bed was less than graceful.  All the machines had to come along for the walk as did my sidekick….my little urine bag.  We walked up and down the hallway.  I knew this was important, the last thing I want are blood clots or pneumonia. Gotta walk.  One lap of the hall and then back to bed.

When I’m at home I sleep with a CPAP and I love it.  I call it my little dream machine and I sleep like crap without it.  When I asked the nurse she told me because of the morphine drip I can’t be on a CPAP, they need to monitor my breathing.  Ok I understand.  I’m not going to argue with a nurse.  I’m not going to be that patient.  I’d rather be know on the floor as the nice, funny cooperative patient. I think you get better care that way.

Sometime around midnight they rolled in another patient next door.  Oh my this guy was in miserable pain.  All night all he did was moan. It was endless.  I turned on the tv and watched a documentary on Daniel Boone and then who knows what, just anything to drown out some of the noise.  I was delighted when the nurse came in to take me on my walk, let’s do two laps!

Somewhere around the middle of the night I started getting a pain, not from the operation.  No this pain I know all too well and it’s only happened once in my life.  My right big toe feels like it’s on fire….this can’t be right….this isn’t a side effect is it?  The nurse came in for my next walk, going down the hallway, yep no doubt about it.  I’m getting a gout flare.  If you’re unfamiliar with “the ailment of kings” as it’s called, it’s freaking painful. So painful that if you put a bed sheet on your toe they can peel you off the ceiling. Crap….I have to get up and walk on this thing every hour.  This sucks. Back to bed…hit the morphine.

The next morning I’m up early to have breakfast and take me for my walk.  When we came back I chose the chair over the bed.  I much preferred sitting up.  By now I’m done with the morphine but my toe is still kind of bothering me me.  At this point I’m blowing into this device to measure how my lungs are working. I’ll realize in a couple weeks just how important this step is.

The day itself is really uneventful.  Sit watch TV, getup and walk, blow into this plastic thing and rinse and repeat.  This went on until 6:30 at night when they decide to release me.  Yes, 6:30 at night.  By the way I still had not pooped. 

The nurse came in and taught us all about the catheter.   How to change bags from the large at home model to the leg mounted stadium buddy.  They roll me out get me into the car (Ouch) give us a couple of prescriptions to fill on the way home.  Pain killers, stool softeners and I don’t remember what else.  What I did not get was anything for my toe, just contact your doctor if it gets unbearable.

To say the drive home was uncomfortable would be an understatement.  I felt every bump, every crack or leaf in the road.  Cindy tried to miss them….or did she?  Yes she did, but I felt everything.

When we got home the first thought was to go upstairs and get me into bed. However it hurt to lay flat, at least it did for me.  We tried pillows and what have you but nothing worked, I decided to go downstairs and try sitting in my SnoozeMaster 5000 sofa recliner.  This feels much better.  This will work.  So I set up shop in the family room.  Meanwhile Scooter my beagel/basset hound mix is very upset he can’t get near me yet. I’m sure in his little mind he’s thinking Dad is broken, I’m his buddy he needs me!  With the catheter tube hanging out the last thing I need is a jumping dog. 

In my case right now there are two dogs.  My oldest son and his wife came back to Illinois from Kansas for a few days to help get me back on my feet.  With them they brought their dog Payton.  Patyon is a golden retriever/ border collie mix that my son rescued while stationed in Mississippi.  I guess I should mention my son is in the Air Force.  During different times of his training Payton would come and live with us.  We are very familiar with each other.  Payton used to climb up on the recliner and sleep between my legs resting his head on my stomach as his big fluffy pillow.  Scooter would then climb up and sleep next to me on the couch with his head on my leg.  Right now both of them are caged off from me.

Me on the SnoozeMaster 5000, 2 days after Surgery

Ok, so now I’m on the recliner in the family room but my wife is not comfortable at all about the bag of urine and the hardwood floors so we fetched a metal pail we had and the bag clipped on the inside.  Ok, I’m now good when I’m sitting but I have to get up and walk 10 minutes every hour. Just like in the hospital but carrying this bag of urine with a painful toe was not the answer.  My son helped at first carrying the bag but that wasn’t right for me to ask that of him.     BY the way….helpful tip.  The bag of urine MUST stay below the level of your penis.  If you reverse the flow bad things happen, such as feeling the equivalent of an electric shock up your penis.  Consider yourself told. I’m pretty confident in saying the only upside to the catheter is you can watch football all day and never get up to go to the bathroom.

Back to walking my laps… I had a moment of brilliance that was about to make life much easier for everyone.  Years back I made a gag 50th birthday present for a friend of mine.  We were both Scouters and we loved hiking, backpacking and camping.  When he turned 50 I made him a hiking pole for a Senior Citizen.  I took a standard hiking pole, cut off the bottom and fitted the bottom of an old persons cane with the four feet on it. The kind they used to put tennis balls on.  I called it the Senior Summit, made some fake packaging, It looked really good like something that was sold in a store.  Well when I turned 50 a few years later guess what I got back as a gift…..yep the Senior Summit.  It was in my basement collecting dust. 

The Senior Summit

I told my son to go get that pole and grab me a wire coat hanger.  A few twists of the hanger to get the height right and now I have a cane I can walk with and it will hold my catheter bag.  Brilliance!  I am now free to get up and move about the cabin.

BY the time all of this gets figured out it’s about 11:00 and everyone is tired.  I stay downstairs and everyone else is off to bed.  The first night my son was really good about getting me up and walking.  After a day or two with some effort I managed to get up out of the recliner on my own for my walks.

One thing I will say…I have cable with what seems like a thousand stations but there is never anything good to watch in the middle of the night unless you want a Jacklyn Smith beauty treatment, some type of new ninja cooking tool Or the Little Giant Ladder system.

Somehow I stumbled on a station called RFD…they have a show that comes on late at night called Country’s Family Reunion which just so happened to feature a reunion of the cast of Hee Haw.. Honestly I got hooked on this show.

OK, back to serious stuff the senior summit pole made it so I could get up and walk around by myself.  Every hour I’d tour my lower level of the house for 10 minutes and then back to the SnoozeMaster.  The next morning the gout flare was in full blossom.  I had a visiting nurse come out to check on the catheter instruct on cleaning and care.  This was also when I found out you can’t treat gout with anti-inflammatory drugs after surgery.  Ice, elevate and grin and bear it.  The pain killers they gave me was the prescription as what I was given for my accident.  Nope, not taking that.  All I took was your basic Tylenol.  Thankfully within a couple days the gout subsided. 

One important thing I want to point out to everyone is to continue using that plastic breathing device they give you.  I used it religiously for the first week then I kind of ignored it.  Big mistake.  Since I was sill stuck on the couch and at this point kind of working on my laptop I didn’t get up as often as I was supposed to. Breathing became an issue and painful.  Once I went back to that device everything soon got better.  Until your up and about on a regular basis keep using that thing.

Scooter by my side

My oldest son stayed with me for my fist week, he was a god send helping me get up and move around in those first few days.  And during those first few days the dogs were behind gates staying away from me…then the jailbreak happened.  Somehow the gate came down and both dogs Scooter and Payton charged into the room to see me.  Both of these dogs are roughly 40 pounds.  Scooter jumped up on my side but Payton charged right at me, leaped over the metal bucket and landed on my chest.  I saw him coming and I managed to cover my nether region in time. My son thought he killed me but it was fine. Lots of licks and then we all settled in together. From that point Scooter never left my side.  He was my constant companion as gentle as he could be to me.  Almost like he realized dad was broken.

By the end of the first week I was up on my own.  I could walk stairs, go to the bathroom, shower by myself, and do all things on my own. My wife went back to work.

In my case the catheter was in for almost two weeks.  That thing probably caused me the most anxiety.  You worry…Is it going to come out on it’s own.  What do I do if it does.  If you push too hard while pooping can you blow it out.  None of that happened. 

And here’s a little tidbit for you, yes I was getting night erections. Not to full mast mind you and not the most comfortable thing with a catheter in you but this was promising to say the least.

When the doctor took it out it was much less eventful than I was anticipating. You hear a lot about pinching and discomfort, that was not my experience. For the second time if felt like something was being pulled through my body. When they took the drain out of my abdomen that was much more uncomfortable.

Do you dribble for a few days after the catheter comes out, yes I did but it wasn’t that bad.  Pick up a few Depends for that period and you’ll be fine.  Do your Kegel Exercises like they tell you!

A follow up visit with the doctor in early November then the first PSA test that really counts in January.  Until that point, no heavy lifting just healing.  Fingers are crossed. I hope this is the end of it.

Next time on Prostate Cancer Sucks but there is Always Hope….How can I have PSA count without a prostate…..next steps……Home Depot will never be the same.

Episode 5 – Good Ole Boys Were Drinking Whiskey and Rye

As I said earlier, I was told on June 26th that I had cancer.  By the time I had met with all the other doctors and decided on my path to surgery it was now early August. I had a vacation to my cabin arranged for the week following Labor Day and I wasn’t going to miss that.  So the date of the surgery was set for Monday September 24th, 2018. 

I’ve mentioned on other episodes that I’m a travel host and not a doctor, that part is true.  I own a cabin just outside of Gatlinburg Tennessee near the Smoky Mountains that Cindy and I rent out.  My other podcast is called and Outsiders Guide to the Smoky Mountains. My “vacation” – it’s never a vacation in September it’s normally when we are making repairs from guests during the hectic summer season.  This year we were meeting up with my nephew Chris coming up from Florida.  Chris is kind of like our third son. This is why I couldn’t miss this trip, these repairs needed to be made plus some hiking time in the mountains with Chris..  Plus, if anything went bad I wanted one last trip to my happy place.

During this same period my company was going through a restructuring and whenever you restructure a company people are a bit on edge. 

By this time we had told our kids the situation, we called a family meeting…the first question at every family meeting always is “who died?”  Apparently, we need to have a few more uplifting family meetings. My oldest son at this time is living in Kansas and my younger son is living in Chicago near us.  Of course they took the news hard but they were really supportive.

Now work was going to be a bit more complicated. My boss and I agreed to keep my situation quiet until all of the restructuring stress had calmed down…why add more fuel to the fire.  I told him I’d do my part but by now my family and some friends know my situation, so it’s bound to get out at some point, you gotta love social media right?

During my time with my company I was the hiring manager for my department, I hired the staff, trained the staff, traveled with them and really built a close connection or bond with may of them.  The team that I hired are mostly the same ages as my two boys so I look upon these people right or wrongly as my work family.  I’m dedicated to seeing these people succeed and yes I tend to protect them if they ever screw up. Just like you would if these were your own kids. 

There were several of them that I was really close to and most of them were in the office with me.  Let’s just say it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out something was wrong with me.  They knew I was having yet another biopsy on my prostate and then suddenly there’s a flurry of other doctors visits that followed. You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to put the pieces together.

I didn’t want to lie to them but I couldn’t have my situation broadcasted around the company either. Plus, I know I can trust these guys. At this point the names of these guys are Mike, Jason, Neil and Bill.  Jason who I hired at this point is working in Texas but he’s so tight with these other guys he needs to know this news.

Of course everyone is asking what can they do, how can they help. Everyone means that, I honestly believe it, but many people don’t know how to express it.  I thought back to the Fathers Day baseball game and the powder blue baseball caps and of course we’re all Cubs fans and the Cubs hat has the C logo on the front of it.  I ordered a few of these hats and gave them to select people with the instruction if you really want to cheer me up put on the hat and snap a picture and text it to me.  If I’m in a bad or depressed mood it will put a smile on my face and nothing needs to be said or written, just the picture. I’m not sure which of the four of those guys coined the phrase “Team Chuck” but that’s where it came from and it stuck.  They were great at sending the pictures.  Wives, girlfriends,  children, pets they sent pictures of all of them wearing the hats. My family and a few close friends jumped onboard also this was a really great pick me up.

Mike and Bill are the ringleaders at this point in the office. They were sending me pictures all the time and checking up on me, anything we can do for you boss?  Just super supportive guys.

Well, what was originally texting turned into Facebook posts and the #teamchuck popped up on a few of them.  More of my friends started to notice the blue hat photos and started asking questions what is Team Chuck?  Quietly via messenger I’d fill them in on what was happening with me and what the hats were all about.  All of a sudden hats started popping up on people that I never sent the hat to.  They were buying them on their own. Team Chuck was gaining steam..

Now prior to surgery the whole “you could die thing” was never totally out of my mind. I’ve had friends die unexpectedly and leave their wife’s in a world of hurt. Not knowing accounts or passwords or where the important papers are.  I didn’t want to put my wife though any of that.  I met with my insurance agent to make sure all the polices are in place.  I met with our financial planner again making sure all was in order should anything happen to me and next steps to provide Cindy a stable income stream were all in place. All the bills were paid for the next two weeks.

I made a list of work contacts in my region and at the HR department regarding company life insurance policies and other details.

I made sure I made a list of all the logons and passwords for the various online accounts she would need as well as a list of important vendors for various house repairs. I made sure she had a balance sheet and a net worth statement of all our assets and liabilities.

This may seem really morbid but I also met privately with my priest and picked out the readings and the songs for my funeral mass. Both my Sister and Mother died in 2015 and I can tell you one of the worst things to do was to sit there and go through all the readings trying to figure out which one my mother or sister would like. I couldn’t concentrate on what I was reading, I just wanted that meeting to be over with.  Nope I’m taking that task off my wife and kid’s plate.  By the way during that meeting we handled my confession.  Face to face right across the desk, no anonymity needed at this point. Received the Anointing of the Sick…were good to go.

I filled in the guys at my Saturday morning men’s prayer group, and a few other people that are on the right path with God.  All said they’d pray for me…couldn’t hurt right?

I told my son, this is the suit, the shirt, the tie and the shoes if needed.

I know….wow…right.  I just didn’t want to leave a mess behind for anyone to figure out.

Finally on Friday before my surgery we pulled the region team together and I told them that I had cancer and that if all goes well I’ll be back to work in a few weeks. That’s not news anyone wants to hear on a Friday. Of course you get the “I’m so sorry’s” from people but this is when the guys from Team Chuck went into overdrive.  In the blink of an eye these blue hats seem to be everywhere.  I’m getting pictures from entire families showing support.  People from the corporate office in California and the other regions. When I explained it finally on Facebook a few days before my surgery what was going on I got a bunch of inquiries on where to get the hats.  To say I was overwhelmed with the support was an understatement. MLB.com ran out of the blue hat.  I was stunned.

On to the surgery.  Surgery prep is surgery prep, no food or water after midnight. I go to bed and try to get some sleep.  Of course in my mind I keep going over what I was missing. Did I tie up all the loose ends? What important thing did I miss? Ok try get some sleep.

The next morning I get up early, we need to be at the hospital very early to get ready.  Now I’m not sure why….maybe God has a sense of humor….have you ever woken up with a song stuck in your head and you just cant get it out no matter what you do. Normally it’s an irritating song like Mariah Cary’s- All I want for Christmas is You or a stupid jingle such as My Bologna has a first name its OSCAR.

Well I woke up that morning and what’s going through my head……………………. Yes. American Pie.  Now music has always been a really important part of my life. Certain songs can teleport me back to a specific time and place. I know all the lyrics to American Pie and I can’t think of a worse song to be going through my head on the day of surgery.  Seriously America Pie?  No doubt, God is laughing.

Anyway…the doctor comes in and explained how the day will transpire. If all goes well I should be waking up in recovery around noon.

During this procedure, the surgeon controls the surgical tools from a console in the operating room. The robotic surgical system gives the surgeon a three-dimensional view and a greater range of motion and allows for better surgical precision while performing this highly technical procedure. Robotic surgery has many advantages for the patient including:

Smaller incisions

Less pain

Shorter hospital stay

Fewer complications

Quicker return to daily activities

Because the prostate gland is surrounded by nerves and involved in other areas important for sexual function and urination, radical prostatectomy is a complex procedure that requires a highly experienced urologist. Your doctor will work to remove prostate cancer tissue while preserving the surrounding nerves, when they can. This optimizes the chances of maintaining normal urinary and sexual function following the surgery.

The doctor explained to my wife that much of this procedure is completed with me being upside down.  He cautioned my wife that because of this and the length of time being upside down she my not recognize me right away in recovery…and she didn’t.

So here we go.  I remember being in the room and being asked to take off all of my clothes except for the gown.  Remove all jewelry, my St. Jude neckless, my bright blue “no one fights alone” bracelet.  I remember I was sitting up in the bed talking with my wife.  They put an IV in and shortly after that (Boop) I was out like a light. I remembered if all goes well, I should wake up around noon.

After that, nothing…..just black.  Many members of my family came to support my wife during my surgery but they had left before I woke up.

The next thing I recall is waking up in recovery which as a big room and seeing one of those clocks hanging from the center of the ceiling. You know the ones where the clockface is on both sides…and I see the time…..it’s 3:30.  All I thought was Fuck me…there were complications.  The I blacked out again.

Next time on Prostate Cancer Sucks, But There is Always Hope…..The longest night….to medicate or not to medicate…..I didn’t see that coming.

Episode 4 – Decisions, Decisions, Decisions.

Before I begin this blog, I just want to give one more disclaimer.  This post is how I made my choice in determining a treatment plan.  Prostate cancer is not a one fits all.  I urge you, do your research, talk to your doctor or doctors and then make your decision and develop your plan.  Don’t take the advice from a stranger with a blog especially when he’s normally a travel blogger who admittedly gives out information that is only 4% accurate and in the case of this blog it drops to 3% accurate. Please go see your doctor.

Hello and Welcome to the Blog.  You have cancer.  Nothing prepares you for that moment. You are crushed. I heard the doctor talking in the background and I stopped and asked him to repeat what he had just said. He was talking about the biopsy and cancer was found in more than half of samples.  Ugh…that’s not good then he talked about my Gleason Score.

I had a guy named Gleason that worked for he me, he thought I didn’t like him very much.  He was wrong, actually he amused me very much but I like to joke around with him playing on his misconceptions.  So yes, I joked this was one more reason not to like Gleason.

Before I go any further we need to have a serious Chalk Talk….What is a Gleason Score?

This is from the American cancer Society…. What do the numbers in the Gleason score mean, for example 3+4=7 or 3+3=6?

Pathologists grade prostate cancers using numbers from 1 to 5 based on how much the cells in the cancerous tissue look like normal prostate tissue under the microscope. This is called the Gleason system. Grades 1 and 2 are not often used for biopsies − most biopsy samples are grade 3 or higher.

If the cancerous tissue looks much like normal prostate tissue, a grade of 1 is assigned.

If the cancer cells and their growth patterns look very abnormal, a grade of 5 is assigned.

Grades 2 through 4 have features in between these extremes.

Since prostate cancers often have areas with different grades, a grade is assigned to the 2 areas that make up most of the cancer. These 2 grades are added to yield the Gleason score (also called the Gleason sum). The highest a Gleason score can be is 10.

The first number assigned is the grade that is most common in the tumor. For example, if the Gleason score is written as 3+4=7, it means most of the tumor is grade 3 and less is grade 4, and they are added for a Gleason score of 7. Other ways that this Gleason score may be listed in your report are Gleason 7/10, Gleason 7 (3+4), or combined Gleason grade of 7.

If a tumor is all the same grade (for example, grade 3), then the Gleason score is reported as 3+3=6.

Although most often the Gleason score is based on the 2 areas that make up most of the cancer, there are some exceptions when a core sample has either a lot of high-grade cancer or there are 3 grades including high-grade cancer. In these cases, the way the Gleason score is determined is modified to reflect the aggressive nature of the cancer.

The higher the Gleason score, the more likely it is that your cancer will grow and spread quickly.

Cancers with Gleason scores of 8 to 10 may be called poorly differentiated or high-grade. These cancers are likely to grow and spread more quickly, although a cancer with a Gleason score of 9-10 is twice as likely to grow and spread quickly as a cancer with a Gleason score of 8.

My Gleason Score was an 8.

Now you would have thought by this time I’d be much more versed in prostate cancer and treatments than I was. I wasn’t.  I honestly thought I had an enlarged prostate and that was it.  I was dumbstruck….you have cancer.  This SUCKS!

I made a follow-up appointment with the doctor to discuss options but in between I had to make a business trip to Cleveland and I had to leave early the next morning.  Talk about going from bad to worse, right.  I’m kidding I like Cleveland, it’s a neat town. I love the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, one of my favorite museums to wander though on my own.  Being a diehard Cubs fan I’m especially fond of the 2016 Cleveland Indians!  How about a little Go Cubs Go for you Cleveland listeners.  Sorry that was a cheap shot.

Anyway…this is where I found out that not only does cancer suck but your own worst enemy on this can be inside your own head. You can go to some pretty dark places in a hurry. People around you don’t understand that. No one knows how you feel. Not your doctor, not the nurses, not your spouse, partner, family or friends.  No one knows your personal battle, especially if you try to keep it all in. Doctor Google can and cannot be your friend in this battle. More often it’s not. It can be helpful doing research but watch out for people with opinions trying to pass them off as medical experts.  I tell you right upfront I’m not a doctor, no miracle cures or elixirs here, no memberships. I just want you to go see your doctor.

Back to the story.  Telling my wife was hard.  Of course there were tears but I’m a pretty stubborn German guy, I’m telling everyone I’m not going down without a fight.  Inside, yeah I was concerned. We decided not to tell the kids until we had some type of plan, no sense worry them at the moment.

Of course there’s no sleep.  All the thoughts go through your head. Is this how it ends?  Was I a good husband and father?  Is the family set up for life without me?  What lies ahead as far as treatments? If I survive whatever the surgery or treatments have in store what is life like on the other side? I’m Catholic,  I need to get to confession, there’s a lot there to get off my chest.

Morning comes, most people in this condition are plowing through Dr. Google as soon as they get up.  Me oh no, I have six hours of alone time driving to Cleveland.  Six more hours of thinking the darkest of thoughts.  Is the Monster on the loose inside my body?  If my wife remarries after I’m dead there damn well had better be a prenup.  I’ve saved my whole life for retirement and no slick talking retiree with no money is going to come swooping in and live fat and happy on my work. No way Jack.  If that happens I swear to god I’m coming back and I won’t be the friendly ghost.

Sorry about that…..I get to do my Dr. Google research alone in a hotel room in Cleveland for two nights until I need to drive home again. 

A week before I got the bad news was Fathers Day.  We saw the kids and enjoyed the day and that night I sat down to watch the baseball game. Fathers Day in MLB has all the players in the powder blue hats to show support for men’s health and prostate cancer Similar to where they wear pink on Mothers Day for Breast cancer Awareness.  During that game they interviewed Joe Torre and he talked about his battle with prostate cancer.  I went on Dr. Google and read his story and that is how I found my way back to the Prostate Cancer Foundation otherwise known as PCF.org. There is tons of information on that site.  I recommend it to everyone and I encourage all of you to either download or order the PCF Patient Guide.  This was extremely helpful in choosing my form of treatment. Links to this site and the guide are on the show notes and on my website prostatecancersucks.com

The one thing about prostate cancer is you don’t have to rush, it’s slow moving so you do have time to weigh your treatment options. The one thing I found interesting is treatment is not a one size fits all. This is where I followed their advice to talk to different types of doctors and their treatments.  I chose to talk to my Urologist, A Radiation Oncologist, A Medical Oncologist and my Personal Physician  and after all of those meetings I’d make my decision. What I did find helpful in the PCF Patient guide was #1 a list of questions to ask these doctors and #2 the recommendation to not go alone.  Make sure to take someone with you to make sure you’re hearing everything correctly.  

So hear we go, starting with Dr. D my Urologist, the treatment recommended was to do the robot assisted surgery and remove the prostate.  We discussed all the other options such as radioactive seeds and such but they really didn’t work for my situation.  I asked my questions and diligently wrote down all the answers and as he walked me through the surgery he started giving me all the scenarios for things that can possibly go wrong. “This could happen and you could die, This could happen and you could die… This could happen and you could die, you could die, you could die, you could die.  Holy shit. This sounded like the worst drug commercial disclaimer I’ve ever heard. Still, You could die from this.  Why the hell would I choose surgery. If I do nothing I could maybe live another 10 years but if I have surgery I could be dead in a few weeks.  My wife and I walked out dumbstruck…now what?  Surgery sounds like a terrible option.

Next up was Dr. C my Radiation Oncologist.  Again, I walked in with my list of questions and he described radiation treatments as painless roughly 40 treatments. Prognosis would be good but there are side effects from radiation that need to be weighed. Possible erection issues, urine leakage, stuff like that.  Plus radiation can cause other cancers.  Crap, not as clear cut a choice as I had thought.

Not unexpected to me was Dr. D my urologist who does the surgery recommends surgery, and Dr C who does the radiation recommends radiation.  This is why now we’re going to Dr. S the Medical Oncologist.  He has no skin in the game at this point, I’m just seeking his advice.  What Dr. S told me made sense, If I’m in your shoes and I’m 57 years old I want the cancer out of my body first.  Then if needed I reserve radiation as my second option to combat the cancer if it’s outside of the prostate.  Ok, that makes sense, what about all the dying with surgery. I told him that story about Dr. D and he assured me maybe something was lost in translation, plus Doctors have to disclose all that can go wrong during a procedure. He urged me to schedule another visit with Dr. D for more discussion.

Lastly, I went back to Dr. B my primary doctor for the same discussion and he echoed what Dr. S said, get the cancer out then treat with radiation if needed.

Ok….back to Dr. D.  I told him of all of my concerns from out last visit and I asked him…can I blow all my 401K money now or do I need to keep saving?  He sat there dumbfounded for a minute…no you need to keep saving.  I asked him honestly how many people die from this surgery?  In his career only one but there was an underlying health issue that caused it. 

Ok then. Surgery it is.  God help me I have a bunch of loose ends to tie up if things go sideways.

Next time on Prostate Cancer Sucks but there is Always Hope…..Team Chuck, American Pie and F-Me.

Episode 3 – Bad Moon Rising

PCS Logo

Hello and welcome to the blog.  You may have noticed that all of these episodes run between 10-15 minutes reading time. Yeah that’s by design.  This topic can get pretty heavy for some people that’s why I made these short. You can click it off at one or two episodes or read to the whole story in one sitting. Hopefully I don’t get you too depressed reading these. I did try keeping myself positive during this period and tried desperately to keep my sense of humor which at time wasn’t easy. 

I ended the last blog again in the watchful waiting period.  It was at this time that Dr A1 made a speedy exit into retirement.  Back to the drawing board, I now have Dr A2 who again was a well-established and very experienced Urologist.  So here we go again, more PSA tests for a baseline with him and again the visit from the Fickle Finger of Doom.  Once more I get the “Hmmmmm” when feeling my prostate.

I should probably give you some idea of a timeline right now so that you don’t think all of this is happening over months, quite the opposite this all up until now is happening over a period of six years. My PSA tests are running about a year apart at this point.  They will increase to every six months in the future.

Well two years after my original biopsy my PSA numbers are rising again, this time up close to 5.0.  Because of the shape of the prostate Dr. A2 elects to do another biopsy just to see if anything had changed.  This was kind of the same deal as Dr. A1, just him and his nurse in his office.  One big difference though was he prescribed a couple of pills prior to the procedure “to take the edge off”.  Yeah man!  Boy did it take the edge off.  I didn’t have a care in the world!  We were done in the blink of an eye, no bleeding penis this time. Not too bad at all.  I did have my wife drive me home that time and again spent the day watching TV, drinking fluids, going to the bathroom and sleeping. The passing of the blood this time was much less than the first time.

A few days later I got the call, the biopsies came back clean, no cancer detected. Still with the rising PSA and additional flow concerns Dr A2 elected to put me on another medication Finasteride otherwise known as Proscar or Propecia, yes it’s the same drug given to guys with thinning hair.

So here’s the deal, we need another chalk talk…..  As was explained to me I was given the drug to increase my urine flow, and to lower stabilize my PSA.  The drug did lower my PSA but not by a ton.  In many cases it can cut your PSA number in half.  But that’s an issue guys.  You can get lulled into a false sense of security with the low PSA number, things may be going on and ignored just because the PSA number is low.

So what is a good PSA number anyway….For men in their 40s and 50s: A PSA score greater than 2.5 ng/ml is considered abnormal. The median PSA for this age range is 0.6 to 0.7. For men in their 60s: A PSA score greater than 4.0 is considered abnormal. The normal range is between 1.0 and 1.5.  At this point My PSA is over 5.0.

As I said when you go on this drug keep in mind your real PSA number is higher how high?

According to Johns Hopkins….

If you are taking finasteride, and you have been taking the drug for:

Two years: Multiply your PSA by 2

Between two and seven years: Multiply your PSA by 2.3

More than seven years: Multiply your PSA by 2.5

If your PSA begins to rise, get a biopsy immediately.

Ok, enough Chalk Talk.

I went onto Finasteride and I was on the drug for four years and yes, my PSA did begin to rise.

Well in a relatively short period of time Dr A2 also decides to retire.  This leaves me with a dilemma, do I keep seeking out the experienced urologists who I figure are all going to retire on me or do I find a younger doctor who is more schooled on the newer technology in treating prostate issues.  I chose the latter and my search brought me to Dr. D.

I like Dr. D a lot.  Very serious guy but if you worked at it you could get him to smile on occasion.  Not often but not impossible.  By the end of 2015 I had my second biopsy which was clean. My PSA on Finasteride was 4.63.  So do the math from the table provided…my real number was up around 9.0.  Now just because you have high PSA it does not necessarily mean you have cancer. It’s an indicator, this is why we’re doing the biopsies, to rule out the cancer.

From the beginning of 2015 to the end of 2015 my number increased from 4.63 to 4.96. In 2017 my number stayed pretty flat 4.69 and 4.72. By June 2017 though the number had hit 5.24. The number without the Finasteride is more like 12.05 at that point.  Oh crap.  We waited a few more months and tested again in December 2017 and then number dropped to 4.71.  Whew, I thought back in line then in Late March 2018 we tested again….5.20.  Enough. 

It’s been three years since my last biopsy and Dr. D wanted to biopsy the prostate himself except his approach was completely different.  Enter the age of technology.  As I mentioned I wanted a doctor who was more comfortable using all the technology available to him and boy did I get it.

Dr, D explained that this biopsy would be different, first they would take a MRI of the area for mapping then during the biopsy they would use Ultra Sound and overlay the images to the MRI and then he can pinpoint exactly where to take the biopsy samples.  Makes sense to me.  Lets do it.

First things first, the MRI.  I’ve never had one before.  I hear they can be loud, claustrophobic which makes some people freak out.  My sister in law couldn’t do it….she freaked. And they can take quite a bit of time. 

For me the worst part of the MRI was the prep, your bowels had to be clean.  I mean really clean… I mean enema clean. Now my wife and I at this point are married 34 years but apparently this is the exact line in the sand for her that she refused to cross. Nope, not doing it, figure it out for yourself.

At this point I need to bring an important character into this story and his name is Scooter.  Scooter is my dog, he’s a Beagle/Bassett Hound Mix and he loves me!  We adopted him back in 2008 just as I was coming off the road and starting my new job. He chose me as a puppy and we are pretty much inseparable. If I was going out of town he would lay on the bed giving me those forlorn eyes of his as if to say please don’t go.  This is a dog you can spend a day watching football with and he will not leave your side, no matter how much yelling you do at the TV.  If I fell asleep on the couch at night he’d stand in the room with his laser eyes that would burn though my eyelids until I woke up and then we’d go to bed.  Yes he slept on the bed.

Scooter Dog
Scooter

Ok, back to the story.  Enema time.  So here I am in the master bathroom, down on the floor….In the downward dog position with the squeeze bottle.  Scooter is sleeping on the bed…..or so I thought….I had the door open which was a big mistake…he sees me and now he thinks since I’m down on the floor it must be playtime! Lick, lick, lick…..go lay down…. Lick, lick, lick…..not now… Lick, lick, lick….. good dog.  I need some privacy. Close they door.  Finish the business.

I know some MRI’s use a coil that is inserted up your rectum but mine thankfully did not.  For me the MRI itself was not a big deal.  I had a 1-person tent back in boy scouts that I used on occasion and that was about as tight a fit as the MRI machine.  So being claustrophobic was not an issue. The machine was loud but they gave me headphones and turned on music. I had to lay perfectly still and the table and blanket was warm…so….I fell asleep.  They talk to you through the headphones telling you that they are now taking this image or that image and make sure you’re perfectly still.  All told, it took maybe an hour to complete.

I did ask the MRI tech how many people panic inside the machine, he smiled and said about one a day, so that is a real thing for some people.

On to the biopsy, now each of the two previous biopsies I had done were in the Doctor’s office with only him and his nurse. This time I walk into the room and it’s full of people!  Well not full, that’s an exaggeration but many more than the doctor and nurse. Now I’ll admit, this took me by surprise.  I had always joked with the neighbors that I skinny dip in my pool out back after dark and if you don’t want to see it then don’t look in my direction. Well this time I was a bit taken aback.  Ok, go on the room and put on your gown.  You lay on the table as the doctor, nurses, technicians, bombadiers, navigators and flight attendants, the guy from food service, pretty much everyone in the building seemed to be in there doing something.

Just as before, I’m in my stylish gown, please get up on the table and lay on your right side.  I then hear the doctor say….the first thing were going to do is insert the anal probe. I don’t know why but all of a sudden I blurted out “I didn’t like it the first time when the aliens did this! Laughter in the room during a prostate biopsy. The ultra sound navigator standing closest to me turned around and said “that was pretty funny, hadn’t heard that before”. 

And then it started, conversations as to location between the Ultra sound Navigator and the Doctor, when the target was acquired….SNAP!…Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap!  Many more than the first two previous biopsies.  And then we were done. Now the waiting comes. The biopsy occurred on Thursday June 21st and the results didn’t come back until Tuesday June 26th at 3:30 in the afternoon…The phone rings….This is Dr. D’s nurse Mr Schmidt can you please verify your date of birth, which I did…..Mr. Schmidt please stay on the line for the doctor……Hello Mr Schmidt this is Dr. D, your biopsy results came back, I regret to inform you they came back positive for cancer…..All I heard was I have cancer.

Next time on Prostate Cancer Sucks, but there is always hope….You have cancer……one more reason to dislike Gleason…..and Joe Torre.

Episode 2- Thar She Blows! Harpooning the Great White Whale

Podcast Cover, Prostate Cancer Sucks

Greetings. You know I never envisioned myself doing a blog on this subject.  I’m a travel host, I’m not a serious blogger by any means. Like most guys this is a topic I’d really like to keep private. During the early stages I was dealing with an enlarged prostate and that certainly isn’t talk for around the campfire.  It wasn’t until after I was diagnosed with cancer that I talked about it and what I had been going through.  I told people about what I was going through not for pity or the “look at me I have cancer”.  I did it because guys don’t talk about this stuff and it cost lives needlessly.  Over just this past year I know of two guys in their fifties who died because they were too stubborn to acknowledge something was wrong and didn’t go to the doctor soon enough.  What did they get from that stubbornness?  They’ll miss out on the weddings, the grandkids, the holidays, vacations, retirement and their golden years. For what?  Ugh what a waste, what a loss.  Men in general are big, dumb, stubborn animals…Can we all agree on that? 

Anyway, as I was going through this people kept asking me can you talk to my brother-in-law, can you talk to my uncle, can you talk to whoever….he won’t see a doctor.  The it was suggested by a coworker that you should do a podcast/blog.  So here we are. My mission in talking about this is to get you to go to the doctor.  Your family is worth it.  Podcasts aren’t free to produce it takes time and money and I have no sponsors and I don’t want any.  I’m paying out of my pocket and investing in you and your health, hopefully I can ge through that thick skull of yours and get you to a doctor. Prostate cancer is not a death sentence especially if it’s caught early.

Okay enough said.

As I mentioned in the first episode my first PSA number was 2.8. I elected to delay going to the urologist and we’d start watching the number to see where it trended. 

Hold on for a minute, I’m just making an assumption that everyone knows what PSA or a PSA test is.  Let’s have a moment of chalk talk <PAUSE> The PSA test is a blood test used primarily to screen for prostate cancer. The test measures the amount of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in your blood. PSA is a protein produced by both cancerous and noncancerous tissue in the prostate, a small gland that sits below the bladder in men. Enough chalk talk.

As I said before, it wasn’t overly bad at this point, I was going more frequently and at a bit of a diminished flow but I wasn’t getting up at night. I kept being greeted by the Fickle Finger of Doom and the size and shape of my prostate during this period was unchanged. I’m just dealing with an enlarged prostate.

Then things took a turn, my PSA number began to rise towards 4.0.  My babbling brook slowed and at some points stopped while I was going (they call that maintaining your stream).  Well, my stream would dry up for a few seconds and then restart.  Dr. B said it was time to head to the Urologist.

So enters Doctor A1 my first Urologist.  I never had a urologist before and in this day and age when you ask for a recommendation you hear “oh their all good over there”.  Uh huh.  As I said before,  I worked in the car business back in the day and guess what we had good mechanics and not so good mechanics but if you asked us the answer was. “oh their all good back there”. 

Let this be my common sense tip #1 do your research!  Go online and check out your doctor.  Make sure he’s a good fit for you.  I wanted someone with experience, frankly a lot of experience, I wanted to see that he went to a good school and had some credentials behind him. And I found that. 

Dr. A1 was a good guy, smart, met my requirements, was not quite the funmeister I like but that’s ok.  I have discovered on my journey that none of the urologists I have seen have had an abundant sense of humor…..maybe it’s the job.

So as all the visits start the review my PSA, then bend over and get ready for the Fickle Finger of Doom.

On goes the glove, splat goes the lube and up goes the finger.

-Hmmmmm

-Once again….Hmmmmm

Now let me say, Dr. A1 spent more that what I’ve experienced in the past as the typical amount of time performing this exam.

-Your prostate is a bit enlarged and it does have this odd little area on it.  I believe the best course of action would be to take a biopsy of the prostate just to see what we’re dealing with for sure.

-Okay, what exactly does a prostate biopsy entail?  In my mind I’m thinking.. I know where they have to go to feel what this looks like but where do you go to get a biopsy of it.  It’s not like there’s a little access door anywhere on my body that I’m aware of.

– We perform the procedure here in my office.  My nurse will assist.  There will be a shot through the wall of your colon to numb the area and then we insert the biopsy devise anally and we take eight samples of your prostate.  You’ll feel a little discomfort from the first shot but after that the devise and the samples are more uncomfortable than painful.

-Wait….You want to put what where and I’m awake for this? 

-Yes you are

I’m thinking….They knock you out for a colonoscopy but for this procedure essentially inserting a dildo up your ass with eight needles coming out of it you’re wide awake.

Alright guys let me stop right here…..Let me peel you off the ceiling, just calm yourself down….I can hear you “Oh no way….No friggin way are they doing that to me” .  Guys as the doc said, it’s not that bad.  Just calm down and let’s get back to the story. Just calm down. Take a breath….calm down.

Ok, I agree to do the biopsy and away we go.  It’s scheduled to be done first thing in the morning.  They tell you this can be done in the morning and you can be back to work in the afternoon if you take it easy.  I took the entire day off and I’m glad I did. 

So here we go, I go into the room they ask me to remove all of my clothes and put on the gown. It’s just the doctor and the nurse as he stated.  They ask me to get up on the table and lay on my side.  I’m sure this is a beautiful sight.  First goes the shot through the colon to numb the area.  Ok if you’ve been to the dentist and have had a shot of nonvaccine it’s not much different but a longer needle and let’s be honest in a much different location but you get the idea. You wait for a few minutes to numb things up.  Then the doctor comes in and talks you through the procedure.

Are you ready let’s get our first sample please lay still. 

In goes the device….after that what it feels like is a spring-loaded pinch and I can still hear the sound.  I can’t describe other than it kind of sounds like the old spring loaded dart guns you had as a kid if your my age. It feels like a thump inside your body in an area that’s never been touched if that makes sense.

Next he’s just moving around the device to get a different angle to take a different sample area, snap, snap, snap.  Eight times….you hear the snap.

Now one of the things they warn you about is that they can miss the prostate and hit something else like your bladder and you can bleed from your penis and yes this did happen to me.

Alright guys let me stop right here…..Let me peel you off the ceiling again, just calm yourself down….I can hear you “Oh no way….No friggin way are they doing that to me” No bleeding penis’s. Just calm down. Not everyone bleeds from their penis. Well not right away.  Just calm down and let’s get back to the story. Just calm down.

Yes, in my case I was bleeding out of my penis but that part didn’t last long.  Was I concerned heck yes.  You will pass blood after this procedure and I did.  I can’t remember how long it lasted but I was back to normal by the end of the day.  It feels weird when a blood clot comes through. Let’s face it peeing blood is not a normal thing for us.

We finished up I got dressed, albeit with a pad in the front of my underwear to catch the blood from Little Chucky.

The rest of the day was watching TV, drinking plenty of fluids and peeing all the time.  Things settled down pretty quickly after that. Overall guys it wasn’t that bad. 

Now honestly I have used this as my yardstick whenever anyone asks me about pain such as when I recently got a cortisone shot in my knee.  My doctor asked me…What is your tolerance for pain Mr Schmidt, I reply “is it worse than a prostate biopsy which is a dildo with eight needles being inserted up your backside?”  Trust me, doctors have no reply to that.

Sorry back to the story…..

So now comes the waiting game for the results. A day or two later I got the call from the doctor….the biopsies all came back negative.  No cancer.  Whew, that a relief.

So we made a follow up appointment to discuss the next steps.

At this point it still appears we are dealing with an enlarged slightly funny shaped prostate but at least there is no cancer.

The next step from Dr A1 was medication,  Tamsulosin otherwise known as FlowMax.   Flomax is an alpha-blocker that relaxes the muscles in the prostate and bladder neck, making it easier to urinate.

I love that name FlowMax.  Just imagine the pitch meeting from the marketing guys on this drug.  Picture This!  Whenever I say that I think of Bewitched with Darrin Stevens in Larry Tates office “Picture this!”, the revolutionary drug to get guys to pee more freely…FlowMax.  Give yourself the power of Niagra with FlowMax!  My wife will tell you I spent way too much time as a kid watching TV. They could have just named it Niagra and then we older guys would have both Viagra and Niagra.

Sorry…getting back to the story.  The Flowmax did work.  My stream was better, not great but better.  I didn’t go from slow moving trickle to Niagra but it was back to the babbling brook and I could maintain the stream.  Again, I could still sleep all night without getting up to pee.

The second part of the equation was what to do about the PSA as it had been rising.  At this point it’s a non-cancerous enlarged prostate so we elected to continue with the watchful waiting of the numbers.  The saga continues.

In the next episode…..The numbers keep climbing…..here we go again….and a new approach.

For more information or resources please visit our website www.prostatecancersucks.com

Episode 1 – Prostate Cancer…It All Starts Somewhere

Podcast Cover, Prostate Cancer Sucks

Podcast: Episode 1 – Prostate Cancer…It All Starts Somewhere

Hello and welcome to the Podcast, I’m Chuck Schmidt and welcome to my story.  Now who am I to be talking about prostate cancer?  As you heard in the opening, I’m not a doctor, I’m not peddling any miracle elixirs or remedies, I’m not selling any books or memberships or anything like that.  I am the perfect example of just an average guy who has been battling prostate cancer.

About me, as of today I’m 58 years old. I’m a bit pudgy.  I’m married and have two sons.  My wife and I met back in high school and have been married for 36 years.  My two sons are both in their 30’s, are both married to amazing, beautiful accomplished women.  My wife and I are empty nesters!

We currently have two dogs, we’ve had as many as four living in this house. So I guess we qualify as dog lovers. I’ve spent all of my life working in the automobile business. My wife and I also have another business that we run and it’s from that business where I learned how to produce a podcast.

How do I start this, where exactly is the beginning?  That’s a great question and it really begins on Interstate 39 in Illinois back in 2006 when I was in my late 40’s.  When my wife and I traveled she use to call me a camel because I could drink tons of fluids but never need to stop and that was true.  Part of it was I just HATED rest stops. Dirty nasty places, guys are pigs. To all you guys that pee on the floor I assume you’re all single, I don’t know of a single wife that would put up with that mess more than once.  Well on this particular drive something was different, I was hitting every rest stop.  Hmm, that’s odd but I didn’t give too much thought to it. In fact, that trip was the beginning of my journey.

Let me hit rewind for an instant….this is important.  Like most of you I never went to the doctor.  From the time I was done with high school sports and my sports physical to until after my sons were born I never went to the doctor. It wasn’t until my kids were in Boy Scouts that had to actually go to a doctor or find a doctor for that matter.  Mine that I had when growing up had retired and I didn’t have one.  So why the Boy Scout reference, My kids loved Scouting and the outdoors and I became a volunteer leader and to go to summer camp with my kids they required me to get a physical. This started me going back to the doctor every year for physical, not because I wanted to but because I had to.  In a roundabout way you could say that the Boy Scouts helped to save my life.

Ok, getting back on track….So here I am driving and stopping at every rest area which is really unusual but I didn’t think that much about it. I didn’t tell anyone, I just kind of let it be, after all it will go away or maybe this is what turning 50 looks like. 

Well it didn’t go away.  At this point, I was a manufacturers rep for an automotive company, my entire life at that period was on the road or in airports.  I covered, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and then got on an airplane and covered Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and Eastern Washington State and I soon knew where the rest areas are on every interstate. The good ones and the bad ones.  If you’re on I-65 in Indiana, skip the one north of Indianapolis.  Heading south stop by Lafayette or heading north stop in Columbus.  There you go, a helpful tip.  You’ll thank me.

The frequency issue was beginning to become an issue especially while flying.  I’m not a small guy, I hate airplane restrooms.  I’d hit the airport terminal restroom right before I got on the plane and found the closest one as soon as I got off. No in-flight drinks, please. 

Well as luck would have it, the car company I was working for decided to leave North America and I had the opportunity to not only change jobs but also come off the road for the most part. Yeah!  So while things improved as far as my quality of surroundings the frequency did not correct itself.  About every two hours I was going to the bathroom, now I admit I’m a bit of a coffee hound in the mornings, so I blamed much of my issues on that. It’s not like I was getting up at night to got to the bathroom, that’s wasn’t happening. None of this is sounding too out of the ordinary right?  There are no alarm bells going off as of yet.

Well here came the first inclination something was really off and it happened by sound. Imagine, there you are standing in the stall and your relieving yourself when someone comes into the next stall and suddenly you realize your serene little babbling brook is no match for his thunderous Mammoth Falls. What the hell?  I’ve got Rex in the next stall standing there,  three feet back with his hands on his hips arcing his stream into the urinal. No wonder there’s pee on the floor in these places.  When the heck did this happen? When did I turn into the babbling brook I’m exaggerating, but not by much.  There is pee on the floor.

If you’ve ever seen the Kominsky Method with Michael Douglas this exact scene plays out in that show. I nearly died watching it. I wish I had his writers when he turns to Mr Mammoth Falls and says “enjoy it while it lasts.”

I don’t know if Chuck Lorre who writes the Kominsky Method is battling prostate issues but for those of us who have gone through this or are going through them, this shows refences to the prostate are spot on.

Now I grew up a normal kid, peeing behind the bushes, swordfights (yeah you know what those are) hell I paid my penance at the troughs of Wrigley Field – which is pretty much one of the most hideous and disgusting things you’ll ever do as a man. Ladies if you’re listening just use your imaginations…the reality is… it’s much worse.

So standing in the stall next to Mr. Mammoth Falls that’s when it hit me (not literally) I’m going more frequently and at a lower pressure. Let’s face it, something is amiss. I have my Scout camp physical coming up, time to talk to the doctor.

OK, tap the brakes here.  Time to talk about the doctors.  Obviously, there are a few of them during my story but since I don’t want to get sued by any of them I’ll just refer to them by letter.

Ladies and Gentlemen….Get your pencil and scorecards ready and I will give you today’s lineup.

Doctors A1 and A2 are my first two urologists

Doctor B is my regular Physician

Doctor C is my Radiation Oncologist

Doctor D is my 3rd Urologist

And Doctor S is my Medical Oncologist.

No, you don’t need to remember that, I just wanted to give you the lay of the land.

So here we go, time for my physical.  I do all the tests, head into the office and work up the courage to tell my doctor something is wrong with the equipment.  It’s amazing how many people go to the doctor and check out when it comes to discussing something like this that is out of the ordinary. Now Doctor B I like quite a bit.  Some people may not.  He’s straight forward and I really appreciate that but he also has a good sense of humor.  When I go to see him the first few minutes we talk about the kids, cars and just stuff in general.  Again I really like that, I feel I can talk to him about anything. 

  • “So doc here’s the thing…. I’m peeing more frequently and I’m experiencing a loss of pressure.”
  • Well Chuck when you get older some guys do lose their ability to cross the T and dot the I in the snow.

I told you he had a sense of humor.  I told him I think this is a bit more than this..

-“Ok Chuck, normally I save this treat until you’re 50 but, in your case, let’s check this out, it’s your time to meet the Fickle Finger of Doom.  Step over to the table bend over and pull down your pants and underwear.”

Now had I planned this better, as a doctor I might have selected a cute little 5’5” brunette with small hands, ordered in some dinner and done this by candlelight. But no, my doctor is 6’3” in his mid-40’s has large hands and this happened under glaring lights.

Remember….as much apprehension as you have about going through this I’m pretty sure Doctor B didn’t get up that morning thinking I sure hope I get to the office, grab some coffee and noddle around in Chuck’s backside today!  This is really a no-win scenario for both of us let’s be honest about that.

And that’s how it happened that the first of many fickle fingers of doom probed my nether regions.  Now if you can get over just this little step guys you’re on your way to punching prostate cancer right in the face.  This moment is what stops so many guys from getting themselves checked out.  It’s really not a big deal, your manhood is still intact, I guarantee you of that.

At this point you hear the glove snap on….the sssplllatrtt of the lubricant..

Alright I need you to bear down…

-“Bear down? Like Chicago Bears…bear down the song?”

-“No, pucker tightly….Smart ass”

  • “Hmmmm”
  • “Hmmmm? What’s Hmmm?”
  • “Your prostate feels only slightly enlarged but there an odd little shape to it.”

And as quickly as it started it was over.

  •   “I’m going to order a PSA test for you.”

That was the first time I had ever heard of the PSA test.  The first of many in my case.  My fist PSA test came back at 2.8, which is right on the edge of the high range.  For a guy my age this was a concern of mine. 

You see my father had prostate cancer but it didn’t rear its ugly head until he was in his mid-70’s, my prostate issues arrived before I was fifty.

With a beginning score of 2.8, I had my choice of going to a Urologist or we could retest in 6 months to see what would happen. I opted to wait the six months and then retest….and so the watchful waiting begins.

Next episode, the numbers start to climb, it’s time to go to the urologist, wait, you want to put what…where?

Thanks for listening to Prostate Cancer Sucks But there is Always Hope.  Remember if you’re over 50 and you know your FICO score and not your PSA level then your priorities are screwed up.  It’s only a blood test, go see your doctor.

For more information and resources regarding prostate cancer please visit our website ProstateCancerSucks.com

Prostate Cancer Sucks the podcast is produced by Two Noisy Beagles Media

So It Begins….

I have prostate cancer as did my father before me.  My battle however came much earlier in life…..like my early 50’s.  I learned really fast Prostate Cancer Sucks.

This site and the accompanying podcast “Prostate Cancer Sucks but there is Always Hope” is my story of prostate cancer. First how I figured out something was wrong, then going to the doctor, next going through  a period watchful waiting until finally I had some serious decisions to make.

Men as a general rule are big, dumb, stubborn animals that don’t talk about what’s really going on with them, especially down there.  I’m going to break through all that garbage.  I’m going to tell you my story, exactly as it happened (why don’t I pee like that?) not for shock value but to give you hope and THERE IS HOPE!  

Join me on this journey, hopefully you’ll laugh,  or go “what the heck?” and maybe tear up a time or two.  See how a group of family, friends and co-workers rallied around me at my darkest times. Most importantly my mission is to get you to go to your doctor if you think something is wrong, that’s what all of this is about.

Prostate Cancer Sucks – Podcast Trailer

Back in early 2019 I was at one of my companies National Meetings.  A friend of mine who I’ll call Dave caught me at the end of one of the breaks and said he had been looking for me and he had to talk to me next chance we get.  I told him ok and we’d catch up at lunch

Well lunch came and finally we found each other.  Dave said I have to say thank you. 

Thank you for what? 

He told me…You probably saved my life.

I grinned; how did I do that? 

Dave told me that he had read a Facebook post of mine about prostate cancer and I had a line in there that hit home with him.

What line was that? I asked.

Dave replied…If you’re over 50 and you know your FICO score but don’t know your PSA number then your priorities are all screwed up.

I remember writing that.  I threw it in at the end of post I wrote about what I was going through.

Dave told me it struck a nerve with him.  In fact, he did know his FICO score but didn’t know his PSA.  That gimmicky little line caused him to go to the doctor for a physical that had been overdue for years.

Sure enough his PSA came back high.  Alarmingly high.  The next step was a biopsy that unfortunately was positive for cancer.  Dave had surgery and the cancer was removed, his surgery was successful.

Dave had no symptoms, no indication that anything was wrong.  This was a silent storm in his case.

He told me…Had you not written that post, I may not be here because I had no idea I had cancer. Keep doing what you’re doing, keep talking about it. In my case you made a difference, you saved my life.

Welcome to my Podcast.  My name is Chuck Schmidt and I have prostate cancer.  You’ll notice I didn’t say had prostate cancer, although all my numbers are very positive at the moment. 

Once you’re told you have cancer everything changes. The blood test you go in for every six months cause nervousness, stress and angst. I know that feeling, because I’m going through it with you.

My father had prostate cancer but it didn’t appear until he was well into his 70’s.  Me? Mine reared it’s ugly head in my 50’s.

I’m not alone just look at some who died in their 50’s

  • Bill Bixby, 59 (actor)
  • Frank Zappa, 52 (rock star)
  • Johnny Ramone, 55 (rock star)
  • Dan Fogelburg, 56

What about those who have died later in life from Prostate Cancer….

  • Dennis Hopper
  • Gary Cooper
  • Winston Churchill
  • Roger Moore
  • Telly Savales
  • Ty Cobb
  • Jerry Orbach
  • Johnny Red Kerr

How about those fighting it now

  • Ben Stiller
  • Colin Powell
  • Robert De Niro
  • Joe Torre and his story really affected me.

Because I have a big mouth and mens health is important to me I’m going to tell my story that actually began in my late 40’s and how I got to where I am today.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.

Remember if your over 50 and you know your FICO score and not your PSA number your priorities are screwed up!  Get yourself to a doctor and get tested!

Thanks for listening.