Marc shares his experience with a Gleason 9 prostate cancer diagnosis, treatment with surgery, hormone therapy, and radiation, and the uncertainty of navigating a rising PSA years later. He reflects on the importance of collaborative care, balancing his own fears with supporting his wife, and staying hopeful while considering future treatment options. Marc also emphasizes PSA testing and encourages other men to be proactive and informed about their prostate health.
Hi, my name's Marc McQuire. I've been dealing with prostate cancer since 2013. I didn't know a thing about the PSA test. It was kind of an interesting story. In 2013, I was traveling to my cabin in Idaho and actually happened to be in the men's room and there was a guy in the urinal next to me, kind of grunting, making some noise. I'm thinking in my mind, he probably has prostate cancer because that's what I thought you did. You have a hard time urinating. And I came home, pretty avid surfer and I was surfing and I had an ear infection. So the ear clogged up. So I went to the clinic that I go to, had been going to for about 12 years. Thankfully, my doctor I'd been seeing for the 12 years was out on vacation and there was another doctor in the group.
And this was in September of 2013. I said, "Hey doctor, I turned 60 back in May and I had a colonoscopy. Is there anything else I should have checked out? " Well, I'm there anyway. He's giving me antibiotics and steroids for my ear infection. So ordered a PSA test with some other testing. So I was 60 and it came back with a PSA of 13. I have a friend of mine that had kidney cancer and there's a doctor in town in the Scripps Group, Natal, which is a rockstar doctor.
And so I went to Natal and I have zero, zero symptoms. So in my mind, it's just when you have a problem with some sort of irritation in urination or something like that, that's all I knew about you would have it. And I didn't really know people died from it. He even said, "Mark, you have no symptoms. You may just have a PSA of 13," which now I've learned so much.
The PSA number is an individual number, not a blanket number that insurance companies use to prescribe diagnosis. So I did have a biopsy, which will bring a tear to a glass eye because I drove down there. I didn't think it was a big deal, but you don't need to go under, but it gets your attention and it came back as a Gleason 9.
So at that point, my next appointment was Dr. Christopher Kane and just very, very well, just well-spoken. I felt a personal connection. I felt a caring individual. Then I asked how they go about putting together their treatment plan. And I think this is very, very important for people that have gone through or going to go through what I've gone through is it's not just a surgeon. It's not just the radiologist. It's just not the oncologist. At that point, after I was coached by Dr. Salem, is how do these folks work together? So at that point, one of my questions was with Dr. Kane. At that point, I'm thinking surgeons want to cut, radiations want to burn, and an oncologist do what they do and try to referee between the two.
I asked Dr. Kane how it goes. "Well, what we do is we sit and there's five of us." An oncologist, himself as the surgeon, the radiologist, I think it was Dr. Rose, Rosa, and UCSD also. "And we look at each patient and we talk back and forth and feel which is the right way to go." So that's when I said I have to be at the UCSD system because they work as teams. They weren't egos colliding in each other saying my way's the only way, because it's not. It's all about collaboration and wisdom and sharing that knowledge and coming out the best solution. And anything in life, especially my health. That's where I thought Kane was the right person to do it. And I still stay connected with Dr. Kane. We're still looking on 12 years later. My surgery was January 26th in 2014, so anniversary a little while ago.
He performed the surgery and it was relatively new back at that time. And he did come to me afterwards and helped me understand a lot more. So there is an engagement I felt with everyone. This is going to sound like commercial for UCSD and it is because they're fantastic from everyone you see. I don't know how they managed to do it, but they do a great job. They care. So afterwards, he said, "When they do the prostatectomy, they roll the prostatectomy in a type of a dye. So then when they do the biopsy, they can see where the cancer is." And the cancer is spread all the way to the outside organ. So I could tell that. So he goes, "Mark, it obviously has escaped the organ. So what we're going to do first is..." I think it was nine months of hormone therapy and just under a year.
So that would give my body a chance to heal from the surgery. And then I had 39 radiation treatments through the prostate bed. The other thing he did, which was really cutting edge at the time, is I had a little pill cutter and it was a quarter Viagra pill a day, and it's brilliant, but it was new at the time, would give blood flow into the area, which would help the healing, which I think makes a lot of sense. And then also that was relatively new with the hormone therapy. The radiation had been around for a while. So I was clean, less than 0.001 from 2014 until about 2020. And then it was a slow rise. Well, it's not really slow. It was about 15, 18% every three months. And that rise has continued and now I have a PSA of 7.
I've had five PSMA exams, which is fabulous. I mean, I believe UCSD had the first machine in San Diego. There was two others, one in San Francisco, one UCLA or USC. So they have not found anything in the five I've had, which in one side is very good. The other side is when is it going to blow up. From my understanding, a seven means that's how much of prostate cancer is growing in me.
Now, the reason I'm at the summit this weekend and engaged with these folks, there's also an informed prostate group that meets here in San Diego that's very knowledgeable and some of the different great doctors from the area come and all over the country. There is stuff coming down the road. I'm here for the summit tomorrow to hear, put my fingers on something that I can see that's really going to be coming down the road, that I can look for a cure, and that I can kind of get me up in the morning, keep me going with the right attitude, which sometimes a little bit of a challenge.
And another thing that you folks may know, but I sure didn't, in prostate cancer is generally men over 65. So not only just myself, I'm going to be 72 in May. The challenge of getting older, you never think about that. And now being older, am I going to be able... I ride adventure bikes, dirt bikes, bicycles, I'm still work around in construction. So I'm facing my own mortality set separate and aside from the prostate cancer. So it does sometimes stack up a little bit. And I think it's important for caregivers and patients to understand those are two separate things and where can we go to get support for that. Because they do kind of multiply on top of each other.
And also, I think it's important to have the right attitude when I'm dealing with some of these precious caregivers. They're there because they care. So we owe it to the caregivers also to have the right attitude when we go in there to make sure they come to work, make sure they have a better story for their spouses and family. I've been given the choice to start hormone therapy and I've resisted it. As I said, I went through it before and just lose all my energy, tired, does free up the brain to think about other things. And my oncologist, Dr. Millard, which is phenomenally and very engaging and very present, very personal, yet very professional, I could start at any time. In my mind, I feel that I should wait until maybe I see a mass because I feel like I'm spending a bullet I don't have to spend right now.
I have a feeling sooner or later at seven, and if it's been going out it is, I'm probably going to be somewhere between eight and nine when I get my blood test and sooner or later something's going to be showing up. And I 100% believe that if they thought it was appropriate, they would be very clear to me to say it's time to take hormone therapy. And what I'm understanding and from what I read, without a mass there, my thought is I want to wait till there's something there to attack because the body does become hormone resistance.
Now it's fantastic. They have different hormone treatments, which reduces that. My thinking is, and that's based on talking to some of these great people at UCSD and reading, is wait till I see something for it to attack before I start pulling the trigger on that. Sometimes it's very challenging.
And then the other part of me saying, it's probably going to come off pretty odd, but I feel a pretty tough guy. I came down here after a divorce in San Diego with two old trucks and $13,000 that started my life over and reasonable, successful life financially and marriage. And now am I going to be tough with cancer? And then what kind of example? That's the kind of example I have to be for my son. It was really unique on hormone therapy. It's just wild. Guys are wired different. And now I understand a little bit about women. A woman walked down... An attractive lady. If I'm in a conversation, I wouldn't even turn my head and look. It's the trippiest thing in the world. I don't know how appropriate it is right now, but it does happen.
And I did feel a little tired, but it wasn't that bad. What I felt, because all my treatment was in my mind, I'm killing this, it's behind me and I'm going forward. So having that in my head, the treatment was just noise for me to enhance and go forward with my life. This next round of treatment will be a little more interesting because at this point I don't have the confidence that I can beat it and kill it. And that's, like I said, another reason I'm here. What are some cures in the future? And also I have to realize I have to be fair how I ask that from my wife because our relationship was based on one way. So one is I feel a responsibility to make sure she understands I'm still strong.
I'm not needy, but I still need her. And that's a balance I think she needs to keep strong for me, and then I need to keep my sanity. But at the same time, allowing her, her moments, when she's scared, she's afraid. We have our roles in life and she's a very strong, great person, successful in her own right. At the same time, she leans on me in certain ways and I lean on her. So I have to check in with myself and be respectful of that. Now, one of the things that helped me cope with what I'm going through is if I can help other people prevent them from doing... We just got to let people know about the PSA blood test. We got to know how simple it is.
And yes, you might have a prostatectomy, but with the robotic surgeries, with the way they can do things now, the side effects are minimal and you will not die from it. And the other fact is it's so flippin' common. I think it's just under 70% of all men. And mine must have started between 50 and 55 for me to be a Gleason 9 at 60. So I think the test should start at 50. And I think it's a simple blood test. And also I do not think a lot of doctors, medical staff, and obviously the public... Everyone has their own individual number. I know a guy went from a one to a two and died from prostate cancer. So there's a magic number of four, and I understand those reasons for insurance companies not to be overprescribing biopsies or different other things, but know your own number and know it varies.
There's illness, there's infections that can change it. Well, still it's slow growing and you can go back three months and check it again. But I think if people understand it's just a blood test with their annual physical and it's right up there with colon cancer, everything else, it's so many multiple chance of people having it. It's just a simple blood test and know what your number is. Don't trust the medical profession or the people you're going. Sometimes they don't know. They're not taught.
If you hear this, just realize a PSA blood test is nothing. A prostatectomy, you get over it. You can beat that and tell other men. There's no reason any man should die from prostate cancer. We have all the tools out there. We have the detection. We just got to tell our buddies. You got to tell people you care about. If someone will listen to you, I've been their ear and tell them, "Get your blood test, knucklehead." And I tell their wives to tell the knucklehead to get a blood test too.