Steve shares how his grandfather’s death from prostate cancer shaped his own fears around diagnosis and motivated him to stay on top of PSA testing. After being diagnosed at 61, he chose radiation treatment and now encourages other men, especially in the Hispanic community, to seek early screening, ask questions, and openly talk about prostate cancer.

My name is Steve Martinez. I'm from New Mexico, currently living in Santa Fe. I've lived in various places all over the state. I am 62 years old, and I have quite an extensive family, actually. I have seven children, four of them are stepsons, three of them are... I'm sorry, four of them are daughters.

And my maternal grandfather, back when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, it was a terminal diagnosis. He was in his 70s, and I don't believe at that point in time there was a whole lot going on medically speaking as far as diagnosis or treatment. So, my grandfather's decline from prostate cancer was rather quick. It was... We found out about it. He was immediately in hospice, and he passed not too long after that.

So, it was quite a shock to us as a family because my maternal grandparents were a huge integral part of our lives growing up. So, to see the man that formed my mechanical experience pass away was very, very traumatic for me in seeing the loss of him to my mother, to my grandmother, and to my uncle and aunt, it was rather traumatic.

But the thing about it was that it stuck with me for so many years, in that I lost this man to prostate cancer. So, this has been at the back of my mind, haunting me for all of my life. I couldn't have been 17 when my grandfather passed away, and I am 62 now, and at 61, I found out I had prostate cancer, but I knew that this prognosis was coming. Like I said, it was at the back of my mind this entire time. So, I was just waiting for that proverbial other shoe to hit the ground or hit me, and it did at 61 years old.

My PSA checks have been fairly regular for, I'd say about eight to 10 years. The PSA stood out for me in my history and my memory. So, I continued to check it, but back then my levels were notable, remarkable, or whatever have you. It was only in this last probably couple of years where we saw, because I would get the results as soon as they did the blood work, and we saw the levels really starting to climb rather rapidly. It was a very notable climb in my PSA levels.

It wasn't until they climbed to, what is it, a 4.5, that the doctors felt that there was reason for concern. They recommended I see a urologist and something new to me. I hadn't actually had to be or be seen by a urologist. And so, I made an appointment with the urologist. The levels were showing an increase, quite a visible increase. So, they said, I need to go in for an MRI.

And within a day, they had the results, which I was able to see, and the results showed raised nodules on the prostate. And it was at that point that the urologist, once I had the scans, I went back to urology, and the urologist talked with me about next steps, which the next step was getting biopsies because there was at least two nodules on the right side of the prostate that indicated possible cancer.

I think it's needless to say that I knew that the prognosis was going to be positive for cancer because immediately the urologist said, "Well, based on what it looks like here with these raised nodules, it's more likely cancer. So, we've got to go with biopsies, and then we'll wait on the results from the biopsy and go from there."

So, once they got the results from the biopsies, which I've got them here somewhere, it showed prostate cancer is rated differently than other cancers from what I understand in... It's called a Gleason score and the Gleason score is based on how high the cancer is in each nodule and mine was a 3+4 on the Gleason score, which according to my urologist was fantastic fanfare. If it was a 4+3, it would have been bad.

The nodules, the raised nodules were on the right side of the prostate. If they had been on the left side, they would have been bad. So, another "haaa." So, the way the urologist presented it to me, it was the perfect storm. So, it was a very positive meeting when they're here with this ball-peen hammer hitting you on the head and saying, "Okay, you've got cancer, but it's a great cancer because your scores are really... If you were to pray about having cancer, this is the cancer you want to pray for."

So, I was all like, "Okay, well, good to hear, good to know. What are my next steps?" So now, with the urologist, their point of view over things was limited to their scope and what they can do, and what the urologist recommended as, "Well, you could go for radiation, or we can do this." And now, basically their only recommendation was to radical prostatectomy is what it's called, where they would just cut out the prostate, stitch me back together, and in his words, I would be cancer-free.

Now, through this journey, me and my wife have been researching all of the cancer treatments regarding prostate cancer and all of the results from all of these different options, not just prostatectomy, but also including different forms of radiation. And we didn't really feel... Because my wife was with me for this... Actually, she'd been with me for all of these visits to urology, and we really had discussed this a lot and didn't feel like the radical surgery was our best option.

So, we asked for a referral to a place across town. It was a brand-new huge multimillion or billion-dollar center based on just oncology. So, we got a referral to them, and we had all of the results sent over there to forward my prostate cancer journey. Since we had chosen the radiation as my option, now there was different forms of radiation that was these pellets that could be inserted, which we really weren't fans of.

The radiation that we chose was... I apologize, I don't have the name in front of me, specific form of radiation where you lie on this table, and it's similar to the MRI machine, except it's this machine that moves over you while emitting radiation to a specific targeted area for me in the prostate. It was an amazing maximum 15 minutes a day for a month, Monday through Friday.

And so, I would drive over there. I would have the 15-minute minor things at the time they required an empty bowel and a full bladder. Now, our dogs that we take out quite often throughout the day can do each one separately, and I don't know how they're built to do that, but us as humans, we're not able to evacuate one without the other. So, it was really challenging for me to have an empty bowel and a full bladder.

They explained the process in that the empty bowel and the full bladder protect the body from the radiation in both those aspects, so that just the prostate is being targeted somehow. Side effects from the radiation were that I had trouble differentiating between passing gas and passing anything else to the point where I actually had to carry spare underwear with me, and I actually thought about carrying disposable briefs, and you become comfortable at a point discussing this with people.

There is nothing that I will not say. There is nothing where I will not discuss because I think it's important that men hear this, that men know this, that I am not going to hold anything back from what my journey has been, so that everybody that gets to watch this, gets to listen to this, will know that these are side effects. You go through your years, and you learn to listen to your body, you learn to listen to your bowels, you learn to listen to your bladder, and you have this honest discussion going on, and things stay the same, but with the radiation, everything in my body changed.

Unfortunately, on the day before Thanksgiving, I find out that the oncology center where I was seeking treatment had their funding yanked out from under them. And I was lucky enough that I was able to receive the entire course of radiation, but I was unfortunate as was everybody else at the place that all of the employees, including doctors, had to leave this sinking ship. They had to find jobs elsewhere. They had to take care of themselves.

In taking care of themselves, I was left, as so many other patients were, without a clue as to what was next. My radiation was completed, but I never had a discussion with my oncologist about next steps and I have had to make several phone calls and involve several people into what my next steps are, which right now we're at the end of April. I have a PSA test at the end of June and based on those, I will go to my final, or not final, but my next oncology appointment to discuss and view where my PSA levels say that I am in my journey.

Being faith-based, I truly believe that this is the end of my journey. I truly believe that I will be able to declare that I am cancer-free, but I don't have that answer as of yet, and I won't have that answer until July, but that's where I'm at right now. I am in stasis because the effects of the radiation have finally calmed down. I haven't had a PSA test since the initial diagnosis, which was back in September, and then, of course, in November, I had my radiation treatment. So, right now I'm in stasis.

I am a Christian. My wife is a Christian. We raised our children to be Christian, and based on that, I do believe that no matter what, I'm okay. After the initial diagnosis, I had a tough time because it's like the shoe hit, I knew it was coming, but it still hit me hard. I had a meeting with one of the pastors of my church, and he gave me some passages from the Bible and scripture to console me, and it was wonderful because I do believe my wife is stronger in her faith than I am, but together we're really strong.

So, once I had had this talk with my pastor, I felt totally solidified and like my oldest brother has been a very strong supporter. I truly believe that with my family and friends and my faith, I have become stronger in this journey, relying on my faith in God to know that if I have to continue the battle, I'm ready to battle. If I'm done with the battle, I'm done with the battle. If the battle has seen the better of me, I'm still good because of my faith.

My being Hispanic, it is... I really do believe not apropos to discuss the sickness. You go about your day with this machismo, "I'm good, I'm great. Everything is fine," but I was raised by my mom while my dad was away from the family battling his addiction to alcohol, and there was no holds barred with my mom. There was no machismo because she was a queen, and there was nothing that was beyond her conversation. There was nothing that she wasn't willing to discuss.

So, we were raised to speak freely and to share everything, emotions, feelings, thoughts. And so, I was raised in a gentler background, but all of my friends were this machismo background, all of their dads were this machismo background. So, there wasn't a whole lot of guys that I could go talk to about this about my family.

Now, I didn't discuss this with my other brother, and I didn't discuss it with my sister, and I didn't discuss it with my oldest cousin, who found out about it after the radiation treatments, and they were rather upset with me for not sharing it with them. That wasn't the machismo, that was just I felt that I had shared it as far as I needed to, but in hindsight, I let them down by not letting them know, because as a man, I actually feel it's my duty to let other men know.

And here I let a friend from church, a brother from church, know about it because he actually came to me and he said, "Look, I want to know about your journey because this is my prognosis." And it was like literally, exactly like mine. And I shared it with him before I shared it with my own brother and sister, having been afforded this opportunity to share it with anybody and everybody, I want the word to go out to everybody that what I've gone through, what I'm going through.

If you're going to go through it, there's people out there that can help you with this, and there's listening ears, there's information out there, there's people that are willing to talk, myself included. And I don't want this Latino machismo to get in the way or whatever this man thing is. I don't want that to get in the way because if that's what keeps you from success in your journey, then shame on me because I contributed to that. So, I want this to go out to every man, whether you have it or not.

It's okay to get emotional. It's okay to seek help. It's okay to ask somebody for the resources. I think it's really important that all men should know in a prostate cancer journey that there are so many resources available. If you just look, if you just ask and find the support that you need in your community, whether it's with your church or maybe it's not your church, maybe it's another church, but you've got to open up, you've got to open up and you've got to find somebody that can help you, that can share with you, give you the resources, ask the questions, don't hold it in, don't be that macho guy that, "I'm tough, I can take it all. And this is the end, this is the beginning," whatever it is. My grandpa was one of those.

And so, that was what I started with was he acted like everything was okay, but everything was not okay, and we were left with this big old void, and we wouldn't have been left with this big old void if there would've been more resources like you folks have offered me and like I have offered my brother in Christ, so seek out help. And there's so many resources out there, so don't ever stop looking, don't ever stop seeking answers, and share because there's so many important people out there that need to hear your message, my message, every man's message.

This interview was produced with the generous support of Blue Earth Diagnostics