Patients share how maintaining a positive outlook, trusting their healthcare team, and focusing on family, purpose, and daily life have helped them navigate advanced prostate cancer. They emphasize the importance of taking treatment one step at a time, celebrating progress, and finding hope through advances in care and the support of loved ones.

Craig Deatherage:

Jeanette and I stepped back and took a look at what was happening, and we were trying to figure out how to tell our children this because we had some significant life moments coming up. My younger daughter was graduating with her bachelor's degree. My older daughter was just engaged and thinking about getting married. We had to time telling our family without delaying it too long. So it happened after the graduation. We actually wound up telling them in the parking lot of a pet store, and then we all went in and just petted puppies and played with dogs for a little while to give them an emotional outlet for that. And then we all sat down and had a good, open talk about what stage 4 prostate cancer is and what they should expect my journey to look like. We talked openly about the statistics but also talked about the fact that I was a young man who probably was going to beat those statistics because I'm not an 80-year-old who's just learned about this and may even pass away from something else as the treatment progressed.

I'm very comfortable with where I am in life in terms of my faith and in terms of my spirituality. So I wasn't worried about me and that also, my older daughter said, "Dad, aren't you just in denial?" And I said, "I don't think I am in denial. I think I'm just comfortable with where I am. And so other than taking care of your mom and making sure you girls understand that I'm living a happy life, a good life, and I continue to live a happy and a good life for as long as I can, this is not going to be my personality. It's not going to be the definition of my identity. It's going to be something I have, just like I have allergies, although a little more serious and the treatments are a little more [inaudible 00:02:16] sometimes and have side effects." And so we learned to live through the side effect, live through the treatment regimen and the scheduling of the treatments over time. But five years later, I am beating statistics and I continue to have a very positive outlook.

There are some very unique things that are promising that are happening in the research field, which probably will yield results well within my lifespan and I expect could extend my lifespan significantly. One of the things that I became very familiar with in my military career, we had 13 moves in my military career and so I never had what you would call a family physician. So I was very familiar with the whole idea of these are medical professionals. I'm going to trust medical professionals. I'm going to do what they advise. And so when I got the diagnosis, I got it in Panama City, Florida. Three years later, I found myself moving to Tallahassee for job purposes, and fortunately, my urologist and oncologist, radiation oncologist in Panama City, steered me directly to friends of theirs who they believed were some of the finest in the state, in that area.

So I connected directly with those people and they continued the treatment. They said, "We like the course of treatment you're on. We like the results that we've gotten," because my PSA has been zero for five years now or nearly five years. You can't argue with those results. And then my wife and I, when we decided to fully retire and move, my boss said, "Craig, if I can give you five good years... I mean, 10 good years, if I can give you 10 good years, how would you feel about that?" I said, "I'd rather have 20, but I hear what you're saying." And then I said, "But you just made me redefine what a good year is. And a good year is spending time with my family, not working." I wasn't rich, I'm not wealthy, but I was at least well enough set that I could retire early and go and spend time with my family.

I made an active choice to retire early and spend time with the family, but I am not at a point where I am in a transition from my treatment. My treatment's working perfectly and I told my doctor, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it. We're going to continue on this until it doesn't work and when it stops working, then yes, we will move on to a next-stage treatment, and hopefully that next stage treatment is around the corner that might present either an extension of the efficacy of the treatments or a cure." And so that's where the journey has been for me, just seamless and dealing with some of the best professionals I could ever hope to meet, and be in their charge even though they place all the responsibility for decisions on me.

Joe LaBella:

Fine. If they would've said, "Stage 1. Okay, it's treatable, we can remove whatever. It's operable, it's..." Well, those options are off the table. So now it's all chemicals and I don't know what else is coming after this. I'm pretty sure they brace me for most everything because the team that's working with me, they're very, very thorough. And they said, "In all probability there may be, up the road, there'll be immune therapy or radiation. We'll just see how it goes." You got to take the fight the way it comes. Each day is another round. You just be prepared and slip them punches. That's all you can do.

John Gritzmacher:

I think I'm doing pretty well. As I said, I'm enjoying working out. I feel more energized and I was telling my daughter that my wife doesn't roll her eyes or say, "Again," when I'm looking around for a bathroom when we're out somewhere shopping or at a restaurant. So she doesn't do that anymore. So she understands that. But I'm still enjoying my retirement. I've been busy like crazy lately with other people's project. My sister and brother-in-law bought a house. It's a fixer-upper kind of thing and I've really been helping them. I love doing that stuff, just cleaning it out and getting ready for some remodel, and I love working with my hands, and carpentry, and whatever odd jobs. So I really like doing that.

When I first saw my doctor, the oncologist, medical oncologist, I had some questions for her and one of the questions I was afraid to ask was, how is this going to affect my lifespan? But luckily she answered it so I didn't have to ask. And she said, by following this regime of medicines, there's no reason that I can't have a good, long life even with the cancer that I have. So I was reassured with that and she's confident of that. So I'm putting my faith in other people, but that's what our lives are.

John Burke:

So I just saw Dr. Pomerantz in January, and a man of his stature and his caseload, I said, "Doctor, you don't even remember." I said, "I'm not sure if you remember. It's just five years ago that this all started." He goes, "Oh, certainly I remember." And he said, "It's been 25 months since your testosterone has returned to normal levels and you're still returning almost-zero PSA scores." He said, "So we're going to say that you're in remission." First positive news that I'd had before the day I submitted to my physical five years later, five years previous.

So he was looking at me funny, he said, "How come you're not elated?" I said, "Because I'm still waiting for bad news." He goes, "But there will not be any." So it's just like so many times before, just book your next appointment. So I left that day and I was happy, and I was in the same parking lot, in the same dark parking garage by myself, the same way. There was two ladies there that I'd never met before in my life, and I just turned on them and I said, "Let me tell you something." They go, "What?" I said, "I just got a clean cancer diagnosis." Everyone started crying and I thought I'd made it. And so that might be it, that might be all I have today.