Speaker 1: 0:04

I'm actually kind of excited about the momentum we've got going with this show. We started out we're just kind of playing around, not really knowing what we were going to do, how it was going to be perceived. We had so many people just saying you know, we love to follow your adventures around the world and we're just being us and I'm kind of excited that you know when you look, that we're, I don't know, a little over 10, 11 weeks in or whatever on the show and uh, we already have like over 3,100 subscribers on YouTube, which is uh really cool, and our all of our TikTok little shorts and clips and stuff are they're getting like 40,000, 50,000 views in just a matter of days, and so it's kind of exciting actually.

Speaker 2: 0:49

Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much, everybody, for your support and for not hating so much. I guess you guys are afraid that I'm coming after you. If you do, yeah, if you haven't already.

Speaker 1: 0:58

Please do us a favor. It's free, so just like subscribe on YouTube, and the podcast is actually on almost every other platform there is, so it is again it's free. We have a new episode that drops every Tuesday morning at 6 am Central Standard Time on YouTube and then on all the other podcast platforms.

Speaker 2: 1:20

Yeah, so let's get after this. Yeah, so let's get after this. Today's episode is a little bit of a harsh topic for us because we had to deal with it in a very reality that I was living and I had to be a rock for him, and he is going to share his story with us and what we went through, and hopefully this will help somebody else in their journey with this awful disease.

Speaker 1: 2:06

Yeah, I think a lot of people, you know, when I was going through this, I put it on, I put the whole thing on Facebook at the time and a lot of friends were like, why are you sharing so many personal details about your health? I said you know what? If it saves one person's life, then it's worth it. Because that's the problem. They call prostate cancer the silent killer, because most men men don't even know they have it and that's the problem. It's like oh, I have a pain, you may have to go. You know, I get up and pee a million times at night or whatever. Or you have maybe some symptoms, but a lot of times you may not have any and you really only find out by doing.

Speaker 1: 2:42

What you should absolutely be doing is just when you do your normal blood work, just say run my PSA, because it's nothing more than running an extra test on your blood work and your PSA score should be under a four, under a 4.0. You're okay If it's above that. If it's elevated, then they're going to do some more testing and find out why it's elevated. But when I had mine this happened in about 2018 or so 2018, 2019, they ran my blood work and the PSA was an 8.7. So they immediately knew right away okay, there's a problem here.

Speaker 2: 3:21

But the only reason this happened is because, like you all know, my husband is 25 years older than I am and, as an American, you guys don't do preventive health care and I always say that. So after he turned 50, I kept telling him hey, you gotta go see a urologist. He's like, oh no, no, I'm fine, i'm'm fine and, honestly, like when he we're, we were actually going because we we own our own business, so we didn't have health insurance here in the us and we were going to mexico to do our like annuals right, like our annual checkups and everything. And the annual checkup before all this happened was fine, like Like his PSA was fine and everything was fine. You really didn't like I made you go to the urologist when we moved to Spain.

Speaker 1: 4:17

Right, Well, that's when they found out was in Spain, and then they automatically immediately sent me to the urologist.

Speaker 2: 4:24

No, we went to the urologist, we went to Spain and I told you well, now we're here, we have full health care insurance, full coverage. Now you cannot tell me no. And you were like I don't want this guy to put his finger inside my ass. I was like, well, whatever, if that's what it takes, babe.

Speaker 1: 4:43

I'm used to paying a lot more money for that, and usually in an Asian country. Oh my God.

Speaker 2: 4:51

He's joking? I hope he no, but I actually made you go and you're like, okay, fine, like I remember you like did not want to go, and I literally dragged you and I made the appointment for you and everything. And when we went there and he put his finger inside you, he was literally like, oh, I feel a bulge, like it's uh-oh, this can't be good, and I was like, yes, you never really want to hear that from your doctor say uh oh, this can't be good right and I was like, oh, fuck my life.

Speaker 2: 5:21

And I was like, oh, fuck my life. And I was like I told you you needed to do this. So he sent you to do some other tests and your PSA was 8.5. And so when, men, when your PSA is high which usually happens to all older men it's either two things either prostate cancer or an enlarged prostate, and unfortunately, this is something that happens to 95% of the men either one or the other, especially the enlarged prostate, and they give you some medicine for that. So the doctor at this point was like okay, I can feel this, we need to do some more testing. So they sent us to do a multi-parametric MRI.

Speaker 1: 6:07

I remember Right, it's actually you know. Thank again. Thank God we were in Spain, because this is a test that they don't really even do in the US very commonly, and if they do, it was an MRI that shot over 3,500 images from all these different angles, got it by the computer and they came up with all these different images of what the actual turned out to be a tumor was on my prostate.

Speaker 2: 6:39

And I remember that that's when all like the journey began. You, number one, you're claustrophobic, yeah, and we didn't know that you can request like a sedation for like an MRI in Spain, because we didn't think about that. So all we did was give I think we gave you a Valium or something.

Speaker 1: 7:02

Yeah, you gave me a Valium and I had to suck it up. I know that was miserable.

Speaker 2: 7:05

You were like, I can't do this. I'm like, babe, come on, you can do it. And you pulled through that and next thing was waiting for the results, and I think that was about like a week for the report. And after that they came and they said well, next thing we have to do it's a biopsy, because actually that's why they send you to do the MRI, because they needed to do a biopsy. But it has to be so precise where the tumor was that they weren't going to poke something else, because it's a very delicate area that you can poke some other things down there. So they did, and then we went to do the biopsy and I remember those were the longest 10 days of our life. Do you remember that, or it's all blurred?

Speaker 1: 8:01

out? Not really. I mean, I kind of remember the whole process overall, but I remember when we did the biopsy and we obviously had to go to sleep and everything put me to sleep and all that stuff for the biopsy and everything like that. But that whole process was, I don't know, very jumbled in my mind now when I think back to all that and what we were doing and waiting.

Speaker 1: 8:25

But thankfully, when they did the biopsy and they said, you know, unfortunately, they said okay, confirming, yes, you do have prostate cancer. But also with that MRI they were able to see that thankfully it had not spread to any other internal organs or to my lymph nodes. And that is why it's a silent killer of a lot of men, because men wait too long and by the time they find out that they have the prostate cancer, it's already spread to their lymph nodes and then just carries it through the rest of the body or it has spread to other organs. And then that's where you're in trouble, because I think when they first came back with the diagnosis, the original diagnosis okay, look, you do have cancer. I think it was stage two, high stage two.

Speaker 2: 9:10

High stage two, almost three.

Speaker 1: 9:14

But thankfully it had not spread and so we said okay. Then they gave me kind of two choices at that period. They said okay, you have, we can either do surgery and they gave me the laundry list of all the side effects of what that was going to be or you could do a targeted radiation therapy. And it's it's intense, targeted radiation therapy. And when I say intense in fucking tense.

Speaker 2: 9:46

Well, we didn't know that yet, because when they gave us the options first, we had to go see an oncologist right.

Speaker 2: 9:53

And the oncologist gave us both options and, depending on the option we were going to do was the next specialist we were going to see. We were going to see and I got to say we were so lucky that when you decided to have radiation they sent us with a specialist that she is one of the nicest doctor. She explained to us every single thing throughout the way, and the way she took care of you with those radiation treatments was like she was an angel for us.

Speaker 1: 10:37

Yeah, we decided to go with the radiation thing because I think it was the lesser of the two problems evils of all the things you're going to have to do then.

Speaker 1: 10:48

But now let me clarify this. But so when I it was a double-edged sword. So when I started that, made that decision and we started down that path she, I was a pretty big boy. We were living in LA and we were like I was working out like a fiend four hours a day. I was big. I was bodybuilding like crazy. I was big. We'll show you what that looks like. That's what I looked like. So she said look you, you look to be very, very strong. You're going to need all that strength to get through this because this is going to wipe you out. But she goes. I can also tell at your age you're probably on a little testosterone. That was helping. You know, at your age you lose testosterone. A lot of men, older men, you're taking testosterone replacement to help. You can't lift like you're 25. When you're 50 plus, I think I was like 58 or something.

Speaker 1: 11:42

So the year 57, 58 when, I got diagnosed but I was still 58 or something. So the or 57, 58 when I got diagnosed, but I was still good shape and everything. But she said look, testosterone does not cause prostate cancer. But if you have prostate cancer and you're taking testosterone, it's like throwing gasoline on a fire and she goes if you, if you continue to take testosterone with prostate cancer, you're dead.

Speaker 1: 12:06

I can't stop it. I can't stop it from spreading because it's going to spread and I can't control that. So she goes. Not only do you have to stop taking testosterone, but I have to kill your testosterone. So I had to go on three months first of female hormones to kill the testosterone.

Speaker 2: 12:22

Yeah, and that was a A very hard time for us.

Speaker 1: 12:27

Yeah, and, like you know, god love you women. I don't know how you do this, because I just remember. I remember, you know, looking at you sitting and we'll start bawling at the sunset.

Speaker 2: 12:40

Look at that sunset. Oh my God, I know you were crying. I mean, my husband is a bitch normally right.

Speaker 2: 12:48

It's so hard to deal with him. I was like, oh my God, he's going to be the bitchiest bitch I've ever dealt with. He was. Normally he throws his tantrums with food and everything and we talked about that before but this time I was like, oh my gosh, how is this going to be? You're going to be all. Oh gosh, god help me here. And you weren't that bad on that, but you were very like suddenly I will come like you're crying. I'm like what's happening? You're like I don't know, like there's some fire somewhere in the world. I was like I understand, babe, I understand there is. And then you're dying laughing. I was like what's happening right now? Oh my gosh, what's happening? Is he possessed? And then you're like I was like what's happening, dude.

Speaker 1: 13:42

Yeah, I was definitely having a lot of weird mood swings on those hormones.

Speaker 2: 13:46

And it was hard for him because you didn't have any strength to work out.

Speaker 1: 13:51

No.

Speaker 2: 13:52

And you went from being so muscular and big to losing all your muscles and also even gaining some boobs. Yeah, like some boobs. That was a part of the side effect. I think it's the same female hormones they do when they kind of like change.

Speaker 1: 14:12

Sex change. It was strong, whatever it was Cause I know like when I went into that from lifting, I at that time period when I was lifting I could do the entire stack. Every machine almost in the gym I could lift the entire stack of weights. I that was that was my thing I lifted every, every single machine, the whole stack of weights. Once I got on the hormones and everything, it was like I could barely lift a quarter of those things and I didn't even really want to work out anymore then because I was just miserable. And then I went through a long period of time that it took me over. Even after all the stuff, it took me over a year and a half to get back in the gym and really feel like I was doing something, and that was a long process.

Speaker 2: 14:51

But the reason why they gave you that is to prepare your body to actually get the radiation therapy, because you need to. I remember, besides, that you had to take some other medication, kind of to prep your body for radiation, and it was the three months to prep you for so it wouldn't keep growing, right? That's the reason they killed the testosterone to avoid the tumor to keep growing and spreading and everything else. It was like to put a stop on it because you're not having nothing testosterone, there's nothing feeding that tumor anymore. So, yeah, I remember that. And after that then that was I think we started September, october, november, and then December was when the radiation was coming.

Speaker 1: 15:37

Yeah, it started when the so she planned. The great thing about this MRI is they feed. The technology they use in Spain is so good and it's so modern, it's so state-of-the-art, five-star. They feed those computer-generated images into their program that actually targets. Then they design the targeting of the radiation to hit the exact points of where, statistically and with, I guess, with modern technology and AI, they find the best way to kill it.

Speaker 1: 16:10

And we did five very intense sessions over two weeks. We did two the first week and three the next week, and I remember the first one was that was scary. I didn't know what was going to happen. You took me. We were living outside of the city a little bit, so we had like a subway out there. We didn't have a car at the time outside of the city of madrid, and so we go to the hospital and I just remember that I was like, oh my gosh. I was like fuck my life, because this I was. I'm in a I'm literally in a cold, dark room. I'm laying on a cold table. I have I'm butt naked, legs spread open, shit shoved up my ass, and laying there spread eagle, two Gen Z girls dancing around.

Speaker 2: 16:56

Nurses, not girls, not random girls. No, not random girls Nurses. Invite some people off the street in no these were actually nurses, but they were Gen Z girls.

Speaker 1: 17:05

They were listening to EDM and they were just dancing around in the room and doing their thing, kind of ignoring me, but just doing their thing, getting prepped and everything.

Speaker 2: 17:12

Well, it would be super weird if they would be just looking at you.

Speaker 1: 17:15

But I just felt I was like oh man, this is what a situation this is. And I remember specifically my doctor. She walks in the room and she's wearing her lab coat and she had on high heel shoes. She's wearing her lab coat and she had on high heel shoes and she's. I hear her walking up and I'm on the table and she's walking up and she gets one step away from me and she slips and she's going. She's about to hit her head, she's falling back and, with all that crap in me, I literally reached out with one hand and I caught her and she didn't hit the floor and she actually started crying because she was like and she's the doctor, she started crying, she goes. I can't believe, with everything that's going on with you right now, that you reached out to catch me from falling.

Speaker 2: 18:03

And I had.

Speaker 1: 18:03

I literally said to her I said you know, you're saving my life.

Speaker 1: 18:08

So you know I'm not letting anything happen to you. There's nothing going to happen to you. So we did the thing. It was loud, it was obnoxious, it was 10, 15 minutes. Didn't hurt at all, didn't I thought? And I thought, shit, this is nothing. I can five, I can do five of these. This is nothing. And she had already left and the girl's like, oh, you're done. And so I get up. You know, I see you when I kind of walk out. So I put my clothes on. So I put my clothes on and you were like how was it? I said oh.

Speaker 1: 18:38

I'm fine, it's nothing, it's no big deal. I can do five of that, that's nothing. Get from the hospital on the subway and we sit down and I think we were on there what five minutes. And I just looked at you and I was like, oh shit.

Speaker 2: 18:57

And I just boom. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:59

Yeah, that was brutal.

Speaker 2: 19:00

I know and honestly I think for me, when I was waiting for you outside, the hardest part is seeing a lot of people, because where we were it's like the designated wing of the hospital for treating cancer patients from all kinds right.

Speaker 2: 19:25

Yeah, the oncology, the oncology wing and for me, looking at a lot of people there, that so many different people right, like women without hair, kids and I think that's the most draining part of it all Like sitting in there waiting for your loved one to come out and seeing all these people that are really, really, really bad in your mind, thinking, man, if this doesn't work, is that going to be it. Like how I was trying to be a rock and and I'll be a rock, but at that moment I was like dang I I don't know if I can see you like these people, because it will. It will destroy me. And then you came out and you looked fine, I was okay, he's fine. And then that happened right Like you lost all your strength.

Speaker 1: 20:29

Yeah, it was like somebody, just literally. It was like a balloon that they just let the air out of. And it happened in an instant on the subway, Because I literally remember looking at you in the eyes and I just said, oh shit. And I just fell over on you and then, if you remember, you had to help.

Speaker 2: 20:44

I couldn't even walk to get out of there I could barely make it up the steps. You had to help me get up and I was like.

Speaker 1: 20:49

This is the first of five, I have one more this week and I have three next week and that process was it didn't hurt, but it's like you got ran over by a truck. I understand what she says now, why you're going to need every bit of the strength you have because it is so tough on your system because of what it's doing. But we got through the five and not long after that we went back and the very first blood work they did in the PSA. She was actually very excited to see us. She goes. I want to see you right now. She goes normally. I would wait a while to see you, but I want to see you right now. She goes normally. I would wait a while to see you, but I want to see you right now because we did your blood work and you went from an 8587 to 0.04. She goes. That's the most remarkable thing I've seen almost in the history of me doing this.

Speaker 2: 21:42

And what was cool is, after we were done with the treatments, she showed us in the computer, like a perfectly like kind of like, the images from the radiation machine and how she showed us like look, this is where your tumor was, this is the prostate and no other organs are being radiated. Like that was amazing. And no other organs are being radiated. Like that was amazing, like the precision that it was for that, because we were worried about that, like oh man.

Speaker 1: 22:12

Is it?

Speaker 2: 22:12

going to hit the other organs? Is it going to hit the other organs that are healthy? Then you know, like radiation, poisoning, like it's a whole thing. But it was so precise that nothing outside the prostate was touched.

Speaker 1: 22:21

Right.

Speaker 2: 22:22

And oh gosh, that was such a blessing too.

Speaker 1: 22:25

Well then she had me do PSA tests every six months instead of every three months, and since that time period as of December was my five years, and it's always stayed 0.03, 0.04. And so now they say five years is the magic number. You're never quite out of the woods, but I guess after five years I'm still at 0.04. So she was like congratulations, basically Ring the bell.

Speaker 2: 22:53

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:55

And you made it through.

Speaker 2: 22:58

And you made it through babe, of you doing what you did and listening yeah to, to me, to the doctor, to everything that they told you to do and not to do, and and I, I am, I'm proud of that and the fact that, oh gosh, I mean I don't want to say thankfully you got it, but thankfully you got it when we were in spain.

Speaker 1: 23:23

Right, because, again, we talked about this before. You know, in the US God knows what that would have cost. But in Spain, because of our health care insurance, we pay $247 a month, zero copay. Every single test, every single doctor, every procedure, everything that included this cancer treatment was absolutely included for free as part of our normal monthly premium of $247 a month not a single dollar more. And the great thing is too over there is that, even if you had, like some Americans, say oh yeah, but it's not American doctor. So one of the great things we do have over there that we're very fortunate part of their system is MD Anderson Cancer Center is in their system, in our insurance. So if I wanted to go to MD Anderson there, I could do that. It wouldn't cost me another cent more because they have to follow the same rules as all the other hospitals do in Spain under their healthcare system.

Speaker 2: 24:21

But honestly where you were treated and I gotta say you were treated there and the process was hard and I understand. But long story like fast forward and long story short. My mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. Right Never smoked a day in her life, she never smoked and it was this, like how you call it, like this genetic mutation in her lung cells that only happens with women that don't smoke, so I. She got diagnosed and she was treated in the same hospital, in the same oncology wing.

Speaker 1: 24:57

With the same doctor.

Speaker 2: 24:58

Well, with one of her, the team that she did actually had to get chemotherapy because it actually spread to her lymph nodes. And I remember when I went there and I saw the doctor, she's like, what are you doing here? I'm like, well, I need to make an appointment. She said for Mark. I said no, for my mom this time. And she's like, oh my gosh, well, she's going to be in good hands, and taking her to the same place that I took you every day. It's like, oh my gosh, well, she's going to be in good hands and taking her to the same place that I took you every day. Well, for like two weeks and I had to take her to the same space. It was like reliving over and over and over again what we went with you when we went with you. But I knew she was in good hands, right, and I I remember like everybody was like, oh hi, you again. I was like, yeah, me again, different loved one. But yeah, I'm here again. But she's, she's.

Speaker 1: 25:58

She also made it through. She also made it through and I'm happy.

Speaker 2: 26:01

And again, like now, our insurance is a little bit more expensive because, you know, like Mark's cancer, mom's cancer, but it's not that much.

Speaker 1: 26:09

What is it?

Speaker 2: 26:12

Now for the three of us $500 a month.

Speaker 1: 26:14

So all this cancer treatment for everyone, all the stuff, all these things we've done. $500 a month covers everything and you can't beat that. Everything and you can't beat that. But you've went through far more than any person your age should have to go through emotionally to watch two loved ones go through this mess. But again we're sharing this. We didn't want to come on and have hey, let's have a crying episode.

Speaker 2: 26:35

No, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 26:36

But it's a thing that we still get emotional about talking about because it was such a tough scenario we made it through. I'm healthier now than I've been in forever. You know, I'm back in the gym and I don't try to lift the whole stack anymore, but I have unbelievable stamina, so I do half the stack and I can go for 90 minutes rest maybe 10, 15 seconds between every rep and I go, go, go. So I'm strong as an ox, I feel great, my blood work is spectacular and I'm in some of the best shape of my life. But we're sharing this because, again, they always say after 50, check your PSA. I'm going to tell you right now after 40, check it, it doesn't hurt anything. Just, it's nothing different. Just say, hey, run my PSA score. If it's over four, then you maybe deal with something. But it doesn't take much more to say run my PSA. But because, again, if it helps save your life, then this is worth this.

Speaker 1: 27:33

And I had a lot of friends reach out to me saying thank you for sharing your story. Because of what you did, I went and got checked and, yes, I have prostate cancer too, or I'm okay. But I wanted to follow what was going on to see what was happening with you and don't be afraid and don't be embarrassed and like she makes the jokes. You know I didn't want somebody sticking their finger up my butt and said you know, years ago, when I first started getting checked by, I had this young, really attractive uh, female doctor who was actually my person. That did that and she chastised me because she said you know, you only need to come once a year, not every week with a bottle of wine. So it's like I gotta put that off.

Speaker 1: 28:17

But no, seriously, we wanted to do this for you, to please give you some advice that don't be afraid to go get yourself checked out. How long do you want to live? What's more important in your life your loved ones and having a long, healthy life? Get checked out, get your blood work done, do the right thing, see the right doctor, eat right, exercise, do all the stuff it takes to stick around. Like, subscribe, follow us, share these stories. If you want to tell us you're full of shit, that's fine too. We really don't care. We really appreciate you following the journey with us and please turn on as many people as you can to our thing. We're having a great time doing this.

Speaker 2: 28:51

Yeah, and we will be talking about other fun stuff, not so fun stuff and follow us along, thank you.