Hi, my name is Stevie Dupin. I have a background in stand-up comedy and fitness. I've always tried to be in shape, eat healthy, and all that. I got involved with Prostate Cancer Foundation, not by choice, but I'm glad I did find them or they found me, however it worked and happy to do work with them and happy to spread the word of staying positive and staying diligent.
Although I was involved in fitness and stayed healthy and ate clean and all that, I wasn't familiar with any prostate PSAs and that type of stuff. But at the age of 42, I felt like something was going on in my body. I was going to the bathroom a lot at night, having some discomfort, so I actually took it upon myself to make an appointment with my doctor. I went in, specifically said, "Can you check my prostate? I'm going to the bathroom a lot." So he did. I got the exam and turns out he just said I didn't have an enlarged prostate. Just getting older, you're going to start going to the bathroom. I'm like, "Really? Five times a night. That seems like a lot." I took his word for it. But the symptoms continued.
About two years later I happened to be with a different insurance company who just, through a physical, require you to do the blood work. And so I did the physical and they were like, "Steve, you need to come back for your blood work on a separate day." And I'm busy and around. I'm like, "Blood work? Who's got time for that?" So several months went by and then the year was closing out and I got a call saying, "Hey, you need to come in for your blood work before the year is out."
And so I went in, did the blood work, and then I got a call from a nurse saying, your PSA is high. I'm like, "What's PSA?" She's like, "That's your prostate." So when the nurse said, your PSA is high, and I'm like, "Oh, my prostate. I thought something was going on with my prostate," but I didn't know PSA meant you could have cancer. I just thought something's going on with your plumbing, your prostate. My mother-in-law was a nurse back in the day, and so I was pretty confident going in for the potential biopsy and all that they wanted to do. And so I said, "I think I'm good." And she said, "Well, Steve, you probably are, but here's an article you should read." And it was a retired NFL player in his fifties who had prostate cancer. I'm like, "Well, I thought I was good until you gave me this article. Thanks for the confidence builder here."
So I went in for the biopsy and my doctor was asking questions, "Is there any prostate cancer in your family?" There was none that I was aware of. My dad died at 40 years old of a heart attack. He's like, "No, that doesn't concern us. It's different department." He said, "Do you smoke?" And I said, "No, actually, I'm in fitness," and he said, "Well, that doesn't mean anything. I know doctors that smoke." And I said, "Well, they're hypocrites." And he was like, "Yeah, we're going in, turn over." So I got the biopsy and then it came back that, yes, there was cancer. They suspected it was 30% on the left side, and then we later found out it was more than that.
I had a two-year-old son, a three-month-old daughter, stay-at-home mom, I was out hustling, doing my thing. So when I found out it was terrifying, I'm like, "What's going to happen?" I'm just looking at my kids, "Am I going to be here?" But the way I found out, I was driving home and my doctor said, "Oh, I'll call you with results." So it was later in the day and he said, "But it'll probably be my nurse. If it's all clear, if you're good, then you'll hear from my nurse."
I happened to be training someone had a private client and I get a call and a voicemail like, "Oh, should I get that? No, let me just finish this session. It's probably no big deal. I'll see if it's from his office." And then I listened to it at the end of my session and it was from the doctor. I'm like, "Uh-Oh, that's not good. It's supposed to be the nurse saying, you're all good. Sorry to bother you. As you were." So I'm driving in traffic, the 405, it's bumper-to-bumper and then, "Hey, Steve, this is Dr. So-and-so. Yeah, well it looks like you've got cancer." I'm like, "Excuse me, should I pull over? Should I say my prayers real quick? Please forgive me for all that nonsense I've done."
And so I'm panicking and I'm like, "What do I do? I am going home to my wife and kids, do I go to work tomorrow?" And he's like, "Yeah, go to work. Why wouldn't you go to work?" I'm like, "Well, I got cancer. Should I start wrapping up?" This was all uncharted waters for me. And he said, "No, we'll set you up an appointment. Come on in and we'll take it from there."
So we set up an appointment. I had to go home and my wife knew I was going to be getting this call, so I walk in the door and my son, "dad, let's play. Let's go to the playground." And I'm looking at her and she's like, "Well?" And I was like, "Yeah." And my wife was tough. She was like a cave woman. She was like going to go out and kill a bison. "I'll to take it from here." She was ready. "Do I have to go back to work and what's the recovery?" I'm like, "I don't know anything. This was 10 minutes ago, I got the news."
So we came in and had our appointment and then my doctor said, "Oh, I'm going on vacation tomorrow for three weeks, and when I get back we'll discuss your options." So he literally left for three weeks. My head's spinning. My wife was on the internet and looking at different treatments and chemo pellets and full radical prostatectomies. And then you're getting advice from everybody. So that was a scary three weeks.
After the phone call, I had a brief appointment before he went and then I went in and he confirmed, "Yes, pick up some literature and I'm going on vacation for three weeks and we'll talk about your options when I get back." And he left. So I literally went to the Urology Department and the first thing I noticed when I looked around, there was a lot of old guys, like much, much older than me. I was 44 at this time and they gave me the literature, the pamphlet. The first thing I see on the pamphlet is an older guy with his older senior wife consoling him, and it says average age 72 years old and a lifespan predicted five years. I was like, "Five years?" Closed it. And I was like, "They should make pamphlets for people in their forties and fifties and sixties, not just give me a heart attack. Here's one pamphlet that says average age is 72."
So we had three weeks to do our own research. My wife was scrambling, I was scrambling. We found out about robotics, the robotics prostatectomy, the da Vinci method I think it's called. And so through another mutual friend, got a couple of appointments, and we decided that was going to be the best route for me. And my doctor did say, because I was young, "Let's be aggressive, let's knock this out." And he suggested the full radical prostatectomy.
The recovery, it was supposed to be nerve-sparing with the full radical prostatectomy, robotics was supposed to be more nerve-sparing, which I was really hoping for. And through a leading cancer surgeon that this foundation is probably familiar with, recommended a couple of different surgeons to do it. One wasn't returning my call, and in the meantime I got in with another one. I went in and immediately showed them a picture of my family. I said, "That's my baby daughter," and I said, "Please take care of this." Because at the time with my insurance company, they only had two locations that were doing this type of surgery. Very expensive surgery, they want to make sure you're a healthy candidate or whatever, so thank God he agreed to do it. He said, "Okay, I got you."
Then I heard from the other, the one I couldn't get to. So then I went back to the one, the person that suggested these two top surgeons and said, "Look, I don't know what to do. Is it going to be bad karma if I cancel this one that agreed to do it and go with the other one, then something goes south?" God's going to say, "See, you got greedy. See what happens?" So he goes, "I can't answer which way to go." So my friend that put me in touch with him, put him on the spot and said, "If it were your son, which one would you?" And he said, "This one." And so I went with the other one.
Leading up to it, there's exercises, there were Kegel exercises, which I didn't even know men could do Kegel exercises. So it was showing me all these things like the pelvic floor work and core work and all this that would help you in the recovery, and I felt like I was strong in those areas because I was in the fitness, but it didn't help to add whatever other tools I could. So I did all of that. The prep work.
The recovery. It's not fun, but it's okay. I was walking the day of surgery. The funny thing is, leaving the hospital, they're giving my wife a tutorial on how to put a diaper on. I'm like, "We do this about 12 times a day." And they gave me a diaper that could fit Shaq, but thank God I didn't need it. Anyway, but I still wear it, it's just fun to wear. But the recovery was you think you're good, but things have been moved around in there and you're very tender. Like I said, we had two babies at home. My wife was swaddling and changing and I had the drains and all of this. So I ended up doing most of it myself. I was like, "I think I got this, mama." She's rocking the bed, swaddling the baby, and I'm like, "Okay." I didn't want to sneeze. I'm very sensitive to pain stuff, so I didn't take any painkillers, didn't take anything following, just tried not to sneeze or cough because it would feel like a grenade was going off in your stomach.
But had a little bit of complications, had an infection from the drain. They ended up keeping that in there longer than expected. But other than that, the recommended time to go back to work was three months, but because I worked for myself, everything was on me. The gravy train had stopped, so I got back to work in three weeks instead of three months. But it was very delicate.
Going into surgery, you're fearful something could go wrong. I had them also to check the lymph nodes, which was additional surgery, but also as far as sexually and stuff like that or, "Is this game over? Should I have just not done anything and ride it?" But the first doctor I saw, the average age, I think, at the time when I had mine was 50 years old to start getting checked, and he told me, I was 44, I wouldn't be here. If I waited until 50 to get the PSA, he goes, "I wouldn't be able to help you. It'd be too late." So thank God they caught it.
Going into surgery is terrifying. I was with my wife. I remember I wanted her to say something like in a movie, "Honey, it's been a great life." And she's like, "All right, see you on the other side, fist bump." I remember waking up and I was thinking all the movies and I'm a comedian and I got to think of something funny and I just remember open my eyes and saying, "Well, this is inconvenient." But yeah, you're terrified going into it what's going to be on the other side. But I've been in rooms with men that had it worse off than I did and a lot of depression following post-surgery. I try to be optimistic. I say ignorance is bliss. I just try to be happy every day and wake up grateful, grateful to still be here, be there for my kids. But yeah, you worry about the challenges as far as are you going to make a full recovery? Are you going to be a man with things still work?
So right away, I think it's been a while, but I think the first week I checked in with my doctor and I bugged him pretty frequently and he was really cool to always take my call, get right back to me. I know checking everything right away, first week, two weeks out, I think it was. And then it goes to after the drains and catheter, everything else is removed, I think, is it monthly? It's been a while, but I know it was like every three months, check everything out. And then six months. That year mark was really big for me. And then, from what I'm told, five year mark is huge.
After surgery, I know I was waiting a couple of days, I'm not sure how many days it was, for a call from my doctor about the lymph nodes and how much had it broken the wall and all of that. He called and gave me the news, "Lymph nodes all good, all clear." There was more cancer than they anticipated. They thought it was 30% on one side, turned out to be cancer on both sides. So I'm grateful they got it taken care of.
And so sexually men are very concerned about that. I think that's one of the reasons men don't want to get checked also. Personally, I think they're afraid they're going to get some bad news and not feel like a man to be able to perform. It is different afterwards. Things, they work, and I think it depends on your age and the shape you were in going into before the surgery. Shop is closed as far as the children, there is an option to freeze things before, and we opted not to do that. God gave us two healthy kids and back to "don't be greedy" again. We probably would've had more children, but we got two healthy ones. We're good.
They do explain post-surgery what your sex life would be like. Things are different, but things still work, you can still have an orgasm, and like I said, the healthier you are going into it, the more things are going to function afterwards. I was fortunate, even with the incontinence, I didn't have any issues. Still don't trust myself if I'm exercising, squats get a little too heavy, I'm like, "All right, Steve, don't push it." I always use the excuse on a plane where it says, don't get up, "I had prostate surgery, I'm going to the bathroom. Get out of the way."
Following the surgery, I think I got a prostate PSA checked every three months and then after a year, I think it goes to six months is what my doctor recommended, and now I do it annually. So I'm still checking those numbers, making sure they're low. What I did find is because I wrote a book on my experience and put some humor in there, some dark humor, I became like a spokesperson where people reach out to me now. I had a friend recently here in Santa Monica that went through it, and so for a year I was coaching him and my main advice is stay positive. Don't freak out, don't read too much on the internet. If you trust your doctor, let them be your advisor because there's a lot of crazy stuff out there. I asked my friends and family at the time, "Please don't give me any advice. I'm kind of in the health business, my wife and I are working, we're in good hands, a good surgeon and let us make that decision."
I would also recommend as getting second opinion, third opinion. This is your health. It's a very serious procedure. And don't mess around. I know people that have tried alternative routes. That was on them. That was what they felt most comfortable doing, and I hope it works out for them. But I would say get two or three opinions and then make your decision from there. What I say in my book, the Silver Lining, and when I've spoken to people that have experienced this is, the first time I went in suspecting something was going on with my prostate and they didn't do the PSA, my son was born but not my daughter. So thank God they didn't do the PSA, I hate to say. But in that two-year period, my daughter was born and her name happens to be Faith. So everything works for a reason.
I tell people to take care of yourself and eat healthy, exercise. You're your own best doctor, so trust your instincts, get fresh air, drink a lot of water, get some sleep. Be grateful. Love people. Check your PSA. It's your health, it's your life.