Latest / Hormone Heroes with Dr. Kelly Hopkins / What Most Men Don't Know About Prostate Cancer & Hormone Therapy with Mr. Michael Bovarnick

Transcript

What Most Men Don't Know About Prostate Cancer & Hormone Therapy with Mr. Michael Bovarnick · Hormone Heroes with Dr. Kelly Hopkins

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: My favorite thing is most men have two brains, one in their head and one between their legs.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: And too many men think with the one between their legs, and especially when it comes to this subject, because you think prostate cancer, the first thing is, well, I can't have sex anymore.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: And thinking that's what intimacy is when we know that's not just the case.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: How it affects the hormone.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: So again, I try to develop this library from again when you're diagnosed, the possibility, the treatment options that you can have, whether it's radiation, surgery, watchful waiting, if it's really metastasized, the chemo, what may be necessary, and how you're going to deal with these.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: And how it affects a family.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: Because the spouse or partner, more often than not, is suffering sometimes worse than the person going through it, because the man stops talking about it.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Hormone Heroes, where I share testimonials from real people who have experienced bioidentical hormone therapy.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Men and women share the symptoms they have experienced and the difference proper hormone replacement has made.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: His work grew out of his own prostate cancer experience, which included surgery, radiation, and hormone therapy.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: After seeing how overwhelming the process could be, not only medically, but also emotionally and physically, Michael began developing plain language educational resources to help patients better understand what to expect between medical appointments.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Today, his focus is on making prostate cancer information more practical, accessible, and easier for patients and caregivers to use when making treatment and quality of life decisions.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome, Michael.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Khalig.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Appreciate it.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for the opportunity.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: You betcha.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just start by you telling us your story and how this progression came to be.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: The long story is I was diagnosed 23 years ago with prostate cancer.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'll preface it by saying that my father died a horrible death from prostate cancer.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, so sorry.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: So I had I had some experience, and of course, protocols have changed dramatically over the years since his passing.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, I was diagnosed, as they say, 23 years ago with a very aggressive cancer.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I chose I was a I I was eligible to have a radical prostatectomy, and I found a surgeon back then that had perfected a laparoscopic radical prostatectomy procedure.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: No one in the United States knew that what that was.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, long and short of it, I met his protocol and was able to do the surgery.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: And um, because again, all of my numbers indicated that it was, as they say, a pretty aggressive cancer.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: And when the uh pathology came back on the prostate, the cancer had one centimeter to go before it broke out of the core.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: So there were no lymph nodes, no nerves, no, nothing else was affected by the cancer at that time.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thankfully, yes.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: Thankfully.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: And post that I lived a pretty, I want to say, normal, healthy life, what we could do.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: But I maintained the one thing I made sure, because I'm a proudly say I'm a paranoid hypochondriac and saved my life a couple of times.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: I made sure that I continued doing PSA testing.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: And protocols said, you know, at certain points post-radical prostatectomy, if you maintain an undetectable prostate, you could go one year, and I always say I don't believe in that.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I made sure I did it at least twice a year and sometimes even more frequently.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're you're just for anyone that might not understand, you made sure to get the proper blood work done.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: PSA is prostate-specific antigen.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you you were recommended to do it once a year, but you did it.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: I did it multiple times during the year because I I also knew that if this cancer did return, and based on statistics published by John Hopkins University, there is a high pot there was still a high potential that even after a radical prostatectomy, clean margins, etc., that this cancer cell, this cancer cells could still be in the body and could regenerate.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I was aware of that and knew the numbers.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: And again, to me, education is the key to this whole thing.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: And bottom line is I was cancer-free for approximately 20 years.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: And coincidental to the last COVID vaccine, which was another whole discussion, is when my PSA started to elevate.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: And that was about two and a half years ago.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I at the time, quite frankly, I knew more about prostate cancer post-radical prostatectomy than my primary care physician did.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, bottom line is we watched it for a couple of months and three or four months, and it would just continue to elevate.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I got pardon, I got rid of that doctor and went to another doctor who knew more about it.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: And ultimately, I had gone post-radical prostatectomy, again, you want to be undetectable.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: And my numbers at the time when I it hit 1.7, and that's a pretty significant number again after that FD process has been removed.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I immediately I said to my then primer, sign up a PET scan, get me in immediately.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: At which point they found two nodes on my left pelvic wall.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I have a son-in-law here in Reno who's a physician at one of the larger hospitals.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: And he fortunately set me up immediately with a urologist who immediately set me up with a radiation oncologist.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: And because of where it was, it was localized, we chose to do five days of pinpoint radiation.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: And six, eight weeks at the time I went in for that radiation, I was already at 2.7.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I was the cancer was moving pretty quickly.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: And went in six weeks after the radiation, I had dropped down to one.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: They were thrilled.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: But at the 90-day mark, which is when you most commonly do it after the radiation, I had gone back to three.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: So that indicated another PET scan.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: PET scan showed that the original two nodes were destroyed, but a new node popped up on top of the old two.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: And now there was a new spot.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: It had metastasized to a spot, and I emphasize spot to my T9 transverse process on my spine, and I knew that if it hit the spine, that that could that's pretty much the end of life at some point.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: It didn't get that bad.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that that necessitated the choice was then, okay, ADT treatment, androgen deprivation therapy treatment, along with additional radiation.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: So the choices for ADT, which you're probably familiar with, are either injectables, or there is now through, I think it's Pfizer, that came up with a product called Orgovics, an oral medication.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I chose to do that because I also knew that if it would be injectable, one is 30 days, there is one that's three months.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: If you have a negative reaction to it, it's stuck in your body, literally.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: And the Orgobics the O medication has a 25-hour life in the body.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: Went on that, and within three weeks, my PSA became undetectable.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: However, my testosterone, which is the discussion here today, hormones, my testosterone went to less than three.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: So, needless to say, that happening, the effects of the testosterone basically disappearing, then creates its own negative problems within the body.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about sexual function, we talk about sleep deprivation, we talk about sweats.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: I know fully now what women go through in menopause, I still experience them.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: What it does to bone mass, what it does to muscle mass, what it can do to blood sugar, on and on and on.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: Just the fact that your entire metabolism now is screwed up because of the lack of testosterone.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, fast forward, I maintained fortunately an undetectable PSA for seven months.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: And at the end of the seven-month period, between my then medical oncologist and radiation oncologist, we agreed that I could try what is referred to as an ADT holiday, meaning going off the medication and let's and hoping that the PSA would remain undetectable.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I did start that after the seven-month mark.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: But that in that, too, one would think, well, you gee, you're going off this medication, that you you know things are going to come right back to normal.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that is not the fact.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: And nobody tells you about that.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: And the actual side effects of going off the medication in some cases was worse than being on the medication, because now the body is in a complete state of flux.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: Seven months it was controlled, a controlled environment, so to say, by the fact that you're taking this pill every day.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: Now all of a sudden you can't do anything, and the body is saying, What are you doing to me?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because it it it doesn't know whether you controlled or uncontrolled.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: And some of the side effects actually got worse.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, and again, I think that's all part of the discussion.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so essentially that's it.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: Fortunately, the good news is I just had a PSA done of yesterday, and it's still undetectable.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: And now we're just waiting for the testosterone results to come back.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: My last my well testosterone, my testosterone one in early August, I went from less than three to a whopping 44.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: So the body is trying to recover, but again, that creates other issues along with it.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: So that's big that's the story, pretty much.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I would just I will say, I will add though that I I I feel there are so many, so many men who are suffering more problems than I am.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel very lucky uh to have had a good medical team.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: I still have a great medical team, the current medical oncologist that I have right now.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh actually, he and I sat down yesterday for my first three-hour class on discussing prostate cancer and what we can potentially do together to help other people.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then that that prompted me to write, start doing this uh education project as so many men just don't know the questions they need to ask.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just a this disease is is terrible and people don't know about it.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's the that's the other thing that's frustrating.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: We and again, not to take up the whole time with this prostate cancer is second only to breast cancer in the numbers of diagnoses every year in the United States.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: American Cancer Society, you're probably familiar with the numbers, suggests roughly 350,000 people, women diagnosed in 2025 with prostate cancer.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry, with breast cancer, and 330,000 men with prostate cancer.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: So we know we never hear about it.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very frightening diagnosis to receive.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what what I'm learning about you, Michael, is that your wish is to help help help others by giving them a head start.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: You had to dig all this information up, you had to go through it and walk through it, but w I think with your theprostateed project.org, is you're providing resources for someone that has just gotten the diagnosis or is fighting prostate cancer for a while.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: And tell us a little bit more about how how the prostate education project came to be.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what after the when you hear the second time around, you have prostate cancer.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's I think it's worse than the first time you hear the word prostate cancer.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's basically you go deaf and you say, okay, is this really the end of life?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: And what's going to happen now that it's returned?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: Excuse me.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I know again, I go back to my father with his prop, you know, when he was diagnosed, of course, again, protocols change.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm interested in knowing what was his protocol versus yours.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: My father was diagnosed at age 75, and I'm going back many, many years now.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: And he, at that time, the protocol was he just had external radiation.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the radiation then, compared to what it is today, again, it's totally different.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: But he was fortunate.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: He went into remission with his treatments for 14 years.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: However, when it came back, it comes back with a vengeance and attacks the bone.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, I have an older brother who turned out to be the caregiver for my father for our father.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I give my brother the world of credit because his the cancer was so bad with my father, you could literally see through one of his legs.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: He had a hook.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, so it was not a pleasant death.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: And uh they said that memory remained with me.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: So again, I when I was rediagnosed, if you will, I'm just saying, oh, I don't want to follow in my father's footsteps in this case.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: And which led me to and get talking with my son-in-law, you know, and knowing that there was just no information, basically.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there is some, but not from a lived experience.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: You can have one clinicians do a tremendous job in trying to explain stuff, but as you've got so much time with patients today, with insurances, the limiting time that you can a clinician can spend with a patient.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: You really can't get into depth.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: And my personal feeling is unless you've lived it, you can't really talk about it.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so, but again, that all said, the books say one thing, and patients tell doctor to tell their clinicians what's going on.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: But so I just, I, I just I had this awakening, if you want to call it, it's such whatever it was, it just I tried to something had to be done.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: It was one little guy trying to make a difference.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I just started writing some things and presented it to my son-in-law because he does a lot of lecturing around the country for his specialty, and that the writing drew into a three-ring binder that I presented to a couple of people at one of our major hospitals here, and that ended up going into a website, and the website continued growing.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: And the website now turned into a what we refer to really as a library where people can go.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I also converted that website, it's 100% medically accepted universal Spanish.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: So that we have found is an underserved population, and the Hispanic male has a greater potential for prostate cancer than the African-American male versus Caucasian.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: And nobody talks about it.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: So, what I try to do is put together, again, from a lived experience, from my experiences, I can't talk about chemo, I can't talk about the five five to ten weeks of radiation that some men are put through, which creates its own problems.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: But from my experiences, and then trying to bring out some of the other discussions when you're first diagnosed, options that you have, knowing what your numbers are, questions you can ask your questions you need to ask your doctor, but you don't know you need to ask.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: How it's going to affect your your life when you hear these words.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: Part of my expression, my favorite thing is most men have two brains, one in their head and one between their legs.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: And too many men think with the one between their legs, and especially when it comes to this subject, because you think prostate cancer, the first thing is, well, I can't have sex anymore.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: And thinking that that's that's what intimacy is, when we know that that's not just the case.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: How it affects the hormone.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: So again, I d I try to develop this this library from again when you're diagnosed, the possibility, the treatment options that you can have, whether it's radiation, surgery, watchful waiting, if it's really metastasized, the chemo, what may be necessary, and how you're going to deal with these, and how it affects a family.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: Because the spouse or partner, more often than not, is suffering sometimes worse than the person going through it, because the man stops talking uh about it.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: So again, so we try to take it through.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then I now having been diagnosed, having been treated with a deprivation therapy, the effects of that and on the on the therapy, and then what happened off the therapy is nobody tells you about that.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, how trying to deal with this stuff, and that basically at my age, I'm 83 years old, that hopefully with what I'm doing, it would this will become my legacy in life and live beyond me.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: And that's my goal.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think you're doing a great job.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think that is happening.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I see in in your library, you have helpful start guides.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: The what is the the pet patient guide, the PEP patient guide?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's basically the process education project.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, essentially, you know, place to go to try to get some maybe maybe not answer everybody's question, but to give some idea that my key focus here is education.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean I have I have some key lines here, but you know, education basically, nobody tells you these things.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: Again, coming back, clinicians don't have the time to tell you about it.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: Some of it because they just don't experience it and they don't know.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: Except for except for what people tell them.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: So the goal was in doing this point by point, and even in now the podcasts that I do and the speaking engagements that I've done, just try to help people understand you're gonna go one of this, you're gonna go through various chapters in your life with this disease, but recognize that they don't have to be the final chapter.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a very hopeful message.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: I see I see here where you have diagnosis basics, like what happens the first 30 days after diagnosis, you have a checklist, and then you have the PSA grade, grade groups and staging explained, imaging explained, MRIs versus PET scans, and and then you get into treatment options where you explain the different treatment options, radiation therapy explained, you get into the explain.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of this is just explanations.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it is.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, radical prostectomy, surgery, and then the treatment journey and the side effects, sleep survival guide, mood, anxiety, and emotional resistance uh during your ADT treatment, PSA monitoring after treatment, and then the couples communication, your fatigue and low energy, you know, even in relationships, the this the sexual relationship changes.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's I just really impressed with the Prostate Education Project website, Michael.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: You've done an amazing job putting this information together.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: So how has um I'm sure you've met a m a gazillion people through this project?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: How has uh the information you gather from other people going through treatment changed the way you present educational material?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: I I guess uh what I when reading and and about other people talking with other people is is it is try to find the information out there.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: There again, there are other places to go, but it doesn't most of them don't talk about it from a lived experience and get into the detail that I have tried to get into again from a lived experience.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: And again, I'm not practicing medicine, I'm not here as a clinician, but just talking about everyday experiences and and When you hear the severity of some cancers, and especially from the more from the emotional side and how this impacts families, that that just infuriates me.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it just infuriates me.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll digress for a moment, if I may.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: My medical oncologist and I have developed a wonderful relationship.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: He's a very unique individual.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: He's a non-conventional type of doctor in today's world.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: And yesterday was my first three-hour class at my house, where this doctor came, and we're talking about prostate cancer, talking about the protocols that exist today, talking about natural, potential natural remedies, as an example, lycopene and how that affects the body, aloe, how that affects the body.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: And trying to just say, well, maybe there's some ways that hopefully we can discover something, work together.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: Because he's a very, he's a he's he's a very strong clinician, and and doing the lab testing is from originally from MD Anderson, spent 30 years in M.D.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: Anderson in Texas doing all types of studies.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: But he's we had this wonderful conversation.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: And my fresh my frustration is knowing that there's no standardization, young men being younger men today, the numbers of cases being diagnosed, severe cases, the lack of testing because the protocols suggested that you didn't need to test because of false positives, and uh the the lack of standardization in treatments, and it depends on your background, where you live, the clinicians that you have, so many variables affecting this cancer, and the fact that really nobody talks about it.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: As an example, Breast A Cancer Month was uh just ended, September.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: Prostate Cancer Awareness Month.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the largest hospital here in Reno, I'll have to remain nameless, okay, is supposed to is supposed to be doing this major cancer campaign.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: There was not one word in local advertising about prostate cancer awareness month this month.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: However, the local large urological group on all of their social media, it's social it's it's prostate cancer.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: Get tested, get tested.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I I don't know if that answers your question.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: I I was gonna ask you uh with this being a project of yours now for over 20 years, have what have you come across as far as controversial treatments?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you get asked probably, you know, about probably alternative options and and how do you approach that?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: There is a lot of discussion and and I and I I I can't speak to it, but there's been a lot of discussion about the ivermectin synbendazol.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: And quite frankly, there's on Facebook there is a ivermectinazol prostate cancer group.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's strong group that's strong believers in that.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: Now, maybe it can't help.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe in some cases it does help, I don't know.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: But that's something that goes a little bit beyond where I want to go at this point.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: I do know that, again, with my with my current med with my medical oncologist now, with with my stage of cancer and his prior studies that he had done when he was at MD Anderson, he had patients similar to me that were had had main were maintaining undetectable PSAs, testosterone was rising, and living great long lives.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: And what one, what were they doing?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, a lot of them were doing taking lycopene supplements.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: What's lycopene?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: Tomatoes.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, if you if you look up now and do an internet search on lycopene, well, sure enough, there's a strong discussion on how lycopene may in fact actually help prostate cancer.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, guess guess who's taking lycopene now?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: Along with along with some other natural natural supplements.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Do they help?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: And why not make your cells be as healthy as possible?
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm a firm believer in that.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: And well, and as they say, I've been drink not to get too personal, when when I was first diagnosed, I started drinking pure aloe.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it's another whole long story, but I've been drinking aloe, pure aloe from one company for 23 years.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: Now, that part of our discussion yesterday was well, everything starts in the gut.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you see aloe cleaning out the gut and helping the gut.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: And helping heal heal the gut lining.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_02: So does that all help?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: I I drink this stuff every single day.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's my morning smoothie.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: So So back to back to your story and By the way, I by by the way, just not to interrupt you, this is an FYA.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: I also had a triple bypass ten years ago.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: You did.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I've had two major events.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: You sure have.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Three, really.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: So back to you and why uh you had some nodules forming in your pelvic wall.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know when it goes the say it's the same way for breast cancer.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: They if you have a prostectomy or even a double mastectomy, there is still a chance that they leave some prostate tissue in the pelvic area or breast tissue, even though they try to get everything.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: So is that what your physicians were thinking?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Is that there was there must have been a little bit of tissue left in that would that would be the source of your nodules?
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: No, at the at the time of the surgery, we the surgeon that I had really thought that he had it all because the cross the cancer was contained.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: And there was no there was no signs that this cancer had metastasized out of the prostate or expanded out of the prostate.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: So we thought really it was cancer-free.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: So down the other now theories, if you will, I mean, uh you probably agree that there we're all living with hidden cancer cells in our body.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, we can argue to Lacowskim home, was it the MNRA vaccine that awakened the cell because it was coincidental to that?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: Again, we can argue all the all day long.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever it is, it and and again, I consider myself at this point extremely lucky that yes, it did come back, and sometimes being the fatalist that I am, maybe there was a reason why it came back because I'm now doing what I'm doing.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it and it it has given me a quite frankly, at this stage of my life, a real purpose in life.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: And honestly, to try to help other people.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I hope it is.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: So but again, I I you know, where where it comes from?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: Are these hidden cells hidden there?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: This is again part of my discussion yesterday with my medical oncologist.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's where did it where does it come from?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: Where where did it come from originally?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, maybe genetic, that's because of my father.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: We don't know that.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: But and that you have a higher potential per the literature.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: If you have a a someone in the family that has had it, uh father, brother, or other, that you may have the higher potential for it.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: But where does this all come from?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, right.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: So back when, you know, in your adult life, after you grew up, what did what did you do for work?
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us a little more about you.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, by education, I'm an accountant and I hated it, so I never did it.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, I started out, interestingly enough, in my my first life in sales.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: I started out in the uh in the medical field.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I sold orthopedic operating tables and all the bed frames and temporary mobilization devices, and through circumstances, life changes and ended up with completely different in the sporting goods industry, fashion industry, luggage industry.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: And my wife and I worked together for many, many years.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: We owned our own marketing company for about 40 years.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: Really interesting.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: So you I bet you saw the whole marketing landscape change in 40 years.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: My goodness, today it's a different world.
• 31:16
  unknown: Yeah.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: I I I could I would not know what to do today.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh lastly, but certainly not least, what what do you attribute your long marriage to?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: 62 years.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: Making sure you have a happy life and happy wife.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: A happy wife, happy wife, happy life, I should say.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that that's you know, to be honest and being frank, the first 20 years with the kids growing up were not always wonderful years.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: It was tough.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: But we managed to fight through it and the ups and downs, and realized that you know, the second time around is not necessarily better than the first time around.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: And we were we worked at it.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we worked hard at it.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I couldn't ask for a better partner and get emotion I get pretty emotional about it.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: She's a very special person.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love that.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: So just to finish up here, I want to remind the listeners that we're looking for the prostateeducationproject.org, and all this will be in the show notes.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can actually reach out.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And Michael, are they if someone reaches out on this website, would they get to speak with you or one of your team?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: They get to me if they want to they can sign up for a newsletter on that site.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: Anybody wants, if anybody ever wants to have a conversation, send me a note.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm happy to talk.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's wonderful.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I see that you have Facebook groups, prostate cancer support group options and things like that for a community.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's Well, I do a lot of I do a lot of work with, as I said, this uh urological group here in Reno through their social media.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: They have, but quite frankly, they have pretty much validated everything I'm doing.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: And if you go into their office right now, I have tent cards both in English and in Spanish with QR codes.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they recently did a, I'm very happy to say they did a 5K, their annual 5K prostate cancer awareness race.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: And it turns out yours truly ended up being the main speaker for the mornings to start the race.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so so it's yeah, it's it's been an interesting, interesting road that I hope we can continue traveling down.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and I'm quite sure you will live a long, happy, productive life and accept this project.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Michael.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's been such a pleasure speaking with you.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for sharing your story with us.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: My pleasure.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: I hope it helps.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to Hormone Heroes.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Take a moment to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: While you are there, help us spread the word by leaving a rating and a review.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you would like to share your bioidentical hormone story or need help finding a physician in your area, please email us at drkelly at hormoneheroes.org.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's D R K E L L Y at H O R M O N E H E R O E S dot org.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: We want you to be a hormone hero.