CA journalist warns prostate cancer ‘could happen to you’

By Anissa Durham, especially for CalMatters

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The night he found out, Jerry McCormick was alone in a Las Vegas hotel room. That was the start of a weekend trip to see Janet Jackson in concert. But before he left, he checked his email. In his inbox was a message from LabCorp: Biopsy results.

“I was looking at the results and I was like, oh my God,” McCormick said. He didn’t call anyone. He didn’t tell anyone. He spent the next seven hours going down a Google rabbit hole for all things prostate cancer.

The next morning, he broke the news to his husband, Richard, whose response was immediate: “We’ll beat this.”

In the following weeks, McCormick told close friends and family. “When people hear cancer, they’re like, ‘Whoah, what a pity,’ but I don’t want to be pitied,” he said. While some were at a loss for words, others immediately offered encouragement. His sister, who lost her husband to a different type of cancer in 2024, took it hard.

But McCormick repeated one short phrase to himself: “I’ll be fine.”

In the meantime, McCormick joined support groups on Facebook, started writing on Substack, and faced the reality that he was fighting for his life. The longtime San Diego journalist, college professor and student mentor coped the best way he knew how — by telling his story.

“It’s the quiet moments that sneak up on you,” he said. “I tend to stay pretty busy, but after I go to bed at night, after the diagnosis, I think about it every day. Like, I have prostate cancer. What am I going to do? It’s scary and surreal at the same time.”

Cancer is one of the scariest words a doctor can say. One in eight black men will develop prostate cancer, compared with 1 in 12 white men, said Dr. Brent Rose, an associate professor of radiation oncology at UC San Diego.

Black men are more likely to be diagnosed at a younger age so American Cancer Society recommends that they start screening for prostate cancer at age 45.

Since turning 50, McCormick has had an annual prostate exam. Last summer he found himself getting up to urinate six or seven times a night. Weeks after his first visit to the doctor, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. For the 57-year-old man, it was a shock – no one in his family had dealt with it.

The most popular way to check for prostate cancer is a digital rectal exam. But Dr Rose said it was not as effective as a blood test for prostate antigen. Latest guidelines from American Urological Association recommend PSA as first screening test and, if necessary, digital rectal examination.

“A lot of guys think about the digital rectal exam and start to worry about it … We don’t want that to be a barrier to cancer screening,” Dr. Rose said. “Digital rectal examinations are not recommended.”

Prostate cancer is disproportionately deadly for black men because they are diagnosed at later stages, often when treatment options are limited. Dr. Rose has several theories as to why they are twice as likely to die from this largely preventable disease: less access to care, genetics and social determinants of health such as racism and poverty.

In September, McCormick went in for a biopsy. Half of the tissue samples turned out to be cancerous. Doctors gave him two options: radiation or surgery to remove the prostate cancer. The first requires daily treatment for several weeks. The latter is usually a one-time procedure.

McCormick had just started a new job and didn’t want to leave the office for weeks. The operation carried risks, including infertility, but as a gay man, he had no plans to have children. He chose surgery.

However, he worried about how his decision would affect his husband. They have been together for 23 years. According to American Cancer Societyit is common for men who have undergone treatment for prostate cancer—such as surgery, radiation therapy, or hormone therapy—to experience some form of erectile dysfunction.

On Dec. 4, McCormick woke up pain-free and assumed his prostate cancer surgery was over. As he waited to speak to the surgeon, his mind raced. How did the surgery go?

The surgeon entered the room and delivered bad news. His abdominal wall was too thick to penetrate and she had to postpone his surgery. The realization came only after three small incisions were made in his lower abdomen.

“It’s been an emotional roller coaster,” McCormick said. Then the anesthesia wore off and the pain from the incision hit.

On the other hand, McCormick was able to celebrate Christmas and New Year at home with loved ones. His new surgery date was January 6th.

But days before the procedure and in the midst of flu season, McCormick became ill. His surgeon told him that if he didn’t get better soon, they would have to postpone the operation again.

Eventually his cough went away and the doctors gave him the all clear. The night before, McCormick was instructed to prepare with a dose of laxatives at 2:00 and 6:00 p.m., no food after midnight, and to use an antibacterial wash on the morning of the operation.

This time, when he woke up from surgery, the doctors said everything went well. After weeks of mental preparation, prayers and words of encouragement, things seemed to be starting to pick up.

The doctor said the procedure involved a larger incision than the first attempt. With an IV infusion of OxyContin and Valium, the pain was under control. Two days later, doctors gave him the green light to go home.

“I couldn’t laugh, talk or breathe,” he said. “It was painful.”

On January 12, he ended up in the emergency room and was later admitted to the hospital. One of his incisions was infected.

The recovery, McCormick said, is anything but linear. He mourns the life he had before prostate cancer. But documenting his experience has given him new purpose.
“I promised myself that I would use this experience to educate people,” he said. “If I know something, I want other people to know it. I don’t want them to get the sanitized version” of prostate cancer.

“It’s scary,” he said. “Some days I’m super mad. Other days I’m like, I got this.”

He’s quick to remind other black men: it can happen to you, and prostate cancer is treatable, especially if it’s caught early.

It will be several weeks before McCormick knows if his cancer is gone.

This comment was adapted from an article created for Word in black.

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