Pete: Prostate Cancer
(upbeat music) – I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in February of this 2010, after having PSA and a digital exam every year since I was 50. The severity of my cancer upon diagnoses was, they gave me a expiration date, basically. We talked to Dr. Hussain, and she said that at this point, about four years is your life expectancy at this point. That’s when she talked to me about experimental drugs and studies because, my cancer had advanced beyond a lot of options. I chose to become part of the trial because I am a fighter. I am a fighter, and I’m not gonna go home and lay and bed and go, “Gee, whiz, I think my time’s up.” And, I’m just not gonna do that, and they gave me an opportunity to not do that. I’ve never felt like I was being inconvenienced or put upon in this test study. I’m treated like a regular patient. You know exactly what to expect. They don’t promise you that you’re gonna live 10 years longer. They just know from the past studies that they’ve advanced peoples’ life expectancies through experimental drugs, or treatments, and I look at it as an opportunity for me to do something for somebody else, and I mean that sincerely. It’s important for them and it’s important for us, and they’re doing this for us. And there’s no reason to not to continue doing something positive that’s gonna be good for other people. I feel that there’s a partnership in our relationship with every person in my treatment. Everyone that I’ve dealt with at that hospital shows me sincerity, that they are concerned, that everybody that goes in there is gonna get well, and they’re gonna do everything in their power to make that happen. I look at cancer, and I know that I got a shot at winning. And again, being in these clinical studies is giving me more of a chance to beat it than somebody had two years ago. And when Dr. Hussain told me that they doubled the amount of time that people have in just 10 years, if they could double it again in the next four years, maybe I can be here a long, long time. (upbeat music)
