Dusty Baker survived prostate cancer | gleason score | brachytherapy | prostatectomy

DESCRIPTION

Dusty Baker’s prostatec specific antigen (PSA) had been slowly rising when he was in his early fifties.  That got the attention of his doctor, who called for a biopsy.  When Dusty returned from a hunting trip, he tells the @CancerInterviews podcast he learned that there were cancerous cells in four of the biopsy’s eight zones.  Dusty’s Gleason score, a measure of the cancer’s aggressiveness, was too high to allow for the less-invasive known as brachytherapy, or, ‘the seeds,’ meaning his best option was a prostatectomy, the removal of his prostate.

Dusty Baker of Sacramento, California, enjoyed terrific health as a major league baseball player and manager.  But because many of the older men in his family had died of prostate cancer, in his forties he started charting the PSA revealed by his annual checkups.  One year his PSA was 1.8, then the next year it was 2.3.  About six years later, it got up to 4.0. 

That ‘s when he underwent a biopsy and in 2001, he learned he had prostate cancer at the age of 52.  His Gleason score ruled out brachytherapy as an option.  Radiation treatment was a possibility, but he had known too many who made that choice and had bad outcomes.  That left a prostatechtomy.

In 2001, the procedure consisted of cutting from one’s navel down to one’s penis.  For the next week, Dusty was told he couldn’t lift his toddler son because doctors did not want Dusty ripping his tender stomach muscles.  Then for the next six months he noticed a change in his urinary function forcing him to wear pads because when the need to urinate materialized, he was unable to ‘hold it.’  This also resulted in his having to often get out of bed and urinate in the middle of the night.  These days, Dusty’s urinary function is almost back to normal.

Following his diagnosis, Dusty made some changes in what he ate and drank.  Although he didn’t eliminate his consumption of scotch, he sharply reduced it.  He began to cook for himself more frequently, including tofu, green beans and collard greens in his diet.

He didn’t enjoy it, but he had to go in for checkups every three months.  The checkups included tests, which meant waiting approximately ten days for the results.  The three-month intervals became six-month intervals, which became annual intervals.  Now, more than 20 years cancer free, the checkups are extremely infrequent.

By way of advice, Dusty Baker often hears from men he knows wanting to learn about his cancer journey.  He tells them to be assertive about getting the PSA test and if it leads to bad news, and aggressively address their diagnosis because early detection is so important.  Dusty also says it doesn’t hurt to acknowledge the power of prayer and positive thinking.

Additional Resource:

Fans for the Cure: https://www.fansforthecure.org

TRANSCRIPT

Bruce Morton: Greeting and welcome to the @CancerInterviews podcast.  I’m your host, Bruce Morton.  On this segment, we are honored to have as our guest, Dusty Baker of Sacramento, California.  Dusty is well-known as a major league baseball player and manager, which we will briefly address; but the primary purpose of his appearance is to share details of his journey with prostate cancer.  So, here he is, Dusty Baker, and Dusty, welcome to Cancer Interviews.

Dusty Baker: Hey, Bruce, y’know, we’ve been talking about this for quite a few years now, we get to finally talk about it.

BM: Yes, and what a great thing it is that we have been cancer-free for some time, and I want to get to that with your journey.  Before we start on that, just so people can learn a little bit more about you, and please understand, some of the people listening and watching will be hearing your name and your voice for the first time, but I have firsthand knowledge that right about the time you started pursuing baseball as a career, you were a pretty fair basketball player, but you chose baseball.  Why?

DB: Well, actually, baseball chose me.  I believed, and I prayed upon it because I had a number of football scholarships, basketball scholarships and a couple track scholarships, but none is baseball, not a one.  So, the Atlanta Braves said they could take my athletic talent, and if I concentrated on one sport, I could be a good baseball player and be on a fast track.  That same year, my parents got divorced, which has been kind of a theme in my life whenever I was at a crossroads or making a major decision.  It’s like when I started coaching, I was getting divorced at that same time.  I was the oldest of five.  My mom and dad separated, my dad was a guy who worked two jobs for thirty-something years, my mom was a secretary, then she was a school teacher after she went back to school, y’know, the economic spokes of the wheel were off.  My dad had a $3-400 apartment.  I didn’t want to be an economic burden for my mom and dad, my brothers and sisters that were coming up behind me.  The night before the draft, I prayed that the Lord not let me get drafted by the Braves.  Then two days later, it was the last day of the draft, it was the 25th round and there were only 26 rounds, the Braves called and said they drafted me.  So, I was like, “Lord, you didn’t hear me,” because at that time there was a lot of racial unrest in our country, there was non-conformity on all fronts.  Everything was anti-Vietnam.  When I was in Northern California, I was hangin’ around Berkeley and Golden Gate Park, so it was like reading and hearing about things in Ebony magazine and on the news with freedom marches and most of them were centered in the South, and I didn’t want to go to the South; but that was the best thing that happened to me because Hank Aaron promised my mother that he would take care of me.  I signed in Dodger Stadium with the Braves.  Tommy Davis (of the Dodgers) was my favorite player who I had watched since I was a kid, Hank promised my mother that if I had confidence in myself that I could be in the big leagues by the time my class would have graduated from college.  If I didn’t think I could make it to the majors that quickly, I could quit, go to school, then take a chance and sign on later.  So, I prayed upon it and my answer was the next day, I signed with the Braves.  It was a tremendous journey and one of the best decisions that I’ve ever made because Hank kept his promise.  He made me go to church, he made me get up in the morning, I mean, I was in the big leagues at age 19, and I was closer in age to his kids than I was to him and my teammates.  That’s how everything started, and that’s why I played baseball.  Basketball was my first love and really didn’t fall in love with baseball until like 1976 when I hurt my knee playing basketball and baseball was almost taken from me, so, then and only then, did I fall in love with baseball, when I started seeing some of the things Hank Aaron told me about, some of the idiosyncrasies of baseball that I never really noticed because I wasn’t in love with it.  Once I fell in love with it, it was almost taken from me, then I saw things that I didn’t see before. 

BM: Numerous highlights in your baseball career as a player and a manager, too many for us to go through here, but there is one I would like you to revisit.  In April 1974, the aforementioned Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record when he hit his 715th home run.  When the ball was hit, there were a handful of players on the field, between the lines.  A larger number of players in the dugout for the Braves and the Dodgers, about 50,000 fans in the seats at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, thousands more who weren’t there but said they were, and a national TV audience.  But out of all those people, only one guy said that historic home run from the on-deck circle, and that was you.  If you would, describe that experience from your unique vantage point.

DB: Well, it was a very unseasonably cold night in Atlanta, the coldest night in April I could ever remember in Atlanta.  Hank told me before the game he was going to end the waiting hit number 715.  He thought he was predicting like Muhammed Ali which round he was going to knock a guy old in.  He would tell me this guy was going throw me a slider low and away and I am going to hit it over the right field fence, said, “Dusty, I am going to get this over with right now,” and I said, “Okay.”  Al Downing who ended up one day being my teammate threw the pitch and Hank hit it over the left field fence.  If you noticed some of the videos, I could have been the first guy there to congratulate him, but I thought that was Hank’s moment.  I didn’t want to be in the shot because that was his moment and that is something you realize that it was historic, but I didn’t realize the magnitude of the event until years later.  He was one of the greatest men that I have been around, him and my father and a couple coaches I had were among the most influential men, you know, that kept me straight, taught me things on the field and off the field.

BM: That’s a nice segue into the next thing I want to ask.  There are some key moments in our lives, and with the passage of time, we gain perspective.  Now, all these decades later, do you find yourself having a different sort of appreciation for being there for that home run?

DB: Every day, I am more and more thankful for things I do good and bad, which builds character in you, and it also builds hope, and it builds faith in you and as well as mankind, I think.  Faith and mankind are what people are losing the most, you know, when you hear about shootings, and you hear about different tragic things and it almost like people have become immune to tragedy.  What I gone through has made me more appreciative of my kids, of life, of my health.  When you see guys passing in the last year, thinking about (baseball players) Jimmy Wynn, Hank Aaron, Dick Allen, Bob Watson, J.R. Richard, Al Kaline, some of the guys who were very influential in my life.  When I look on my walls at home, Willie Stargell, Larry Doby, Joe Black, Buck O’Neil, guys that helped me become the man that I am and encouraged me to pass it along to somebody else.  When I think about my dad, I didn’t want to coach, and then my dad told me the Lord wouldn’t have given me the wisdom and knowledge to be around the guys that taught me this wisdom and knowledge, that it wasn’t mine to possess, it was mine to pass along, hopefully to others, so that they can pass it along to somebody else.

BM: As for your cancer journey, everybody who goes through has a moment in which something doesn’t seem normal, something that tips them off that something might be wrong.  When did you receive such a tip?

DB: Actually, nothing tipped me off.  What happened was, I was doing some public service announcement for prostate cancer because of my dad, and he was diagnosed about eight to nine years before I was.  So, I was doing these PSAs for men to go get tested because you know, men won’t do like women.  Most of the women on their own will go get a mammogram and go to the doctor, but us hard-ass men, so to speak, we think we’re infallible and that we have got to be really, really sick to go to the doctor.  So, once my dad started going and getting his prostate treatments, and he had to go through hormonal treatments at that time, and it wasn’t nearly as progressive as it is now;  when that happened, I started charting myself because of my dad, and then I learned my uncles died of prostate cancer, my grandfathers, just about all the men in our family, like my grandfathers, I never knew them because they died in their forties.  I started charting it.  One year, my PSA was 1.8, then the next year it was 2.3.  Then after about six or seven years, it got up to 4.0.  There was a doctor named Reggie Rector, who was Hank Aaron’s nephew’s best friend, so I went to see Dr. Rector.  Well, I was going duck hunting, and he said to first come by his office to see him.  They gave me the biopsies, they take snips out of your prostate.  So, I went huntin’, came back, and that next week, he told me, hey, man, you better come in.  I asked what was going on and he said I had cancerous cells in four of the eight zones that they snipped off, and a couple of them have a high Gleason score, which determines how aggressive the cancer is.  I went back and told my wife and said I couldn’t believe it.  When they tell you that you have cancer, it was the most unbelievable thing.  I was 52 going on 53, it was December of 2001, and my son was two years old, my wife had just lost her mother to breast cancer a few months before that, and my wife said she wasn’t about to lose me as well, and that we had to do something about this.  I talked to Dr. Rector, and you know, they don’t tell you what to do.  They give you the options, but you can tell by their eyes kinda, or by their mannerisms.  They said my Gleason scores are too high for the seeds (brachytherapy), so I couldn’t do the seeds, and then, I didn’t want radiation because I have had friends that have had radiation, so I have got to get my prostate taken out.  I asked Dr. Rector if I have it taken out, and he said they will try not to get to the margins, and then Dr. Joseph Presti at Stanford did my operation, and they took it out.  At that time, they cut from your navel all the way down to your penis and remove your prostate.  Years later, they could do it robotically, and they have made tremendous, tremendous strides.  This was December and I was cleared to go back to spring training for the 2002 baseball season.  I had about a week in between and they told me I couldn’t pick up my son.  My son couldn’t understand why I couldn’t chase him anymore because they didn’t want my stomach muscles to rip.  It was challenging, but I had to make a choice between having a life change on different things.  I had to wear these pads like a diaper for six months or whatever it is because I didn’t have any holding time.  Then I would be driving with my wife and on the road, I would tell my wife that I have to use the bathroom, or I would urinate small amounts on myself.  You learn a lot about yourself.  At that time, I liked to drink scotch, but I learned if I have more than one or two, they would just flood through you, so, you make these changes.  You start eating better.  I never cooked so much as I did that winter because I was eating a bunch of tofu.  I made tofu and collard greens, and tofu and beans because I was doing a lot of studying on different diets and different things that would help you.  Prior to my operation I went to Hawaii, and I was on a plane, and I went to Kauai which I had gone to years ago.  I met to this healing center.  I am not Buddhist, but it is very serene, it is a place where you go, and you pray, and you meditate and be thankful about life.  So, I went there, and after leaving, I realized that man, I was going to be all right.  I knew that I was going to beat it because especially when I saw my son sitting on the grass by himself, he was two, going on three, and he just sat there with his eyes closed.  It was sort of a magical place, which I went to in 2015 after I had had a mild stroke.  That’s where I go to give thanks for give thanks for my life and give thanks for my family.  The most traumatic part of the whole cancer journey was the three-month checkups.  They would check you every three months.  You do a test, and the doctor would tell you he’d call you in a week or he would call you in ten days.  That was the worst.  I would tell the doctor to call me with the test results right away.  Some people don’t want to know, but I wanted to know right away.  As my wife told me, I have to get aggressive with our approach to this and attack it before it attacks me.  I am now at 20 years.

BM: It sounds like you had a pretty good handle on all this.  What would you say was the toughest part of the aftercare?  Was it going in for the visits every three months, or the urinary function piece, or was there anything else tough about this, because it sounds like you had a good handle on it.

DB: I had a good handle on it, but it was tough, and there was psychological part of it.  There was also knowing I had never previously had to get up in the middle of the night to urinate.  Never before this, but I found myself in that position in the first few months.  When I wake up in the middle of the night, I find myself thinking about stuff I don’t want to think about.  Some people can get up and go right back to sleep, but if I get up, I can’t get back to sleep because my brain wakes me up for different reasons about different things.  The hardest part was when never getting up at all to getting up three or four times a night and then I couldn’t go back to sleep.  That was the toughest part, just staying asleep, that, and changing your lifestyle, but you know, I had a two-year-old son.  People asked me during the 2002 World Series why he, my toddler son,  was out there (on the field during batting practice and as a batboy).  Well, I didn’t know if the cancer was still there or if it was going to come back, and I was trying to give my son everything that I could in case my cancer came back.  That’s why he was out there.  I was trying to get him out there as much as I could, even though he doesn’t remember now.  Like I said, your priorities change, you think more about life and death, and think more about treating people right, you start exercising more, you start taking better care of yourself nutritionally, you concentrate on what’s really important in life and realize that you are not Superman.  I mean, it’s real humbling, especially for an athlete.  Most of us think that we are superhuman, but when something like this happens to you, things change.  You start getting calls from other guys.  I got a call from you, Bruce.  When I hear from guys, I encourage them to get the PSA test, to be on top of it, and early detection is the key.  You don’t want to wait and let it spread until it’s too late.

BM: Was there ever a medically-related stage when you felt you were getting the upper hand on cancer, or did you feel that when you went to Hawaii, or a combination of the two?

DB: Probably a combination of the two.  You know, we have turtles all over the house, turtles all over the swimming pool, and I swim with the turtles.  Turtles are a sign of long life and a part of Hawaiian culture, and I really got into Hawaiian culture, and I also got into the Native American culture.  I befriended the Cheyenne tribe in Montana, and I go there a lot and I fish with them and become more spiritual about things.  They call me “Brave Eagle,” because see eagles all the time, and I have seen eagles since I was a little kid.  They gave me a couple eagle feathers and paintings, and sacred ornaments and bracelets are stuff, so, since I had cancer, I have had a whole different awakening about myself.

BM: I hope the following is going to come across as good news for viewers and listeners, but as you are now, about 20 years out, number one, urinary function is a big deal.  Has urinary function returned to normal?

DB: Almost.  Like I said, if I drink, it seems like it will flow through you, but you have these exercises that you have to do, different things that you have to do to help your muscles.  I try to stay in the best shape that I can.  I watch my weight, I watch my diet, all these things that you do to maintain a good life.  I now have a grandson, I see more reason to take care of yourself, and stay on top of things.

BM: You mentioned diet.  Are your culinary skills still at the same level, still spending a lot of time in the kitchen?

DB: In the wintertime I do.  In the wintertime, I cook what I like.  I have a winter crop in my garden and when I don’t have a job, I always have a summer crop.  My summer crop consists of collard greens, mustard greens, I have a bunch of tomatoes, a bunch of peppers, I am in the wine business, I have a couple acres of grapes at my home.  In the wintertime, I grow broccoli, radishes, collard greens, mustard greens, kale, just different things my family likes to eat.  Oh, in the summertime, I grow eggplant, which I can’t stand, but my family likes, I don’t like squash, but I grow that for my daughter, so that eases my mind.  These are some of the things my dad liked.  I also have a rose garden, which my dad loved, and being the oldest, I always had to work with my dad.  I used to hate pulling weeds, but now I can’t stand weeds.  Gardening, my dad taught me, so now I eat out of my garden.  I also have spices.  I have got rosemary, some other spices I grow outside my door, and I just go pick ‘em when I need ‘em, and so it’s been good.

BM: Now we want to wrap things up, and we will close in the way we always close.  If you found yourself with in a one-on-one conversation with someone who has just been diagnosed with prostate cancer, if there is one overarching message for that person, what would it be?

DB: The power of prayer and positive thinking.  I am convinced that prayer heals all, but positive thinking enhances that and be proactive instead of being reactive.  It’s a fight, but there have been some people that have had great attitudes that survived and there have been some people that I know that have had negative attitudes and haven’t survived.

BM: All right, Dusty, thanks very much for sharing your story, both where cancer is concerned and a little bit where baseball is concerned, there is a lot of good information for anybody watching and listening, so, Dusty, once again, we are very appreciative of your time, thanks so much for taking time with us.

DB: All right, Bruce, thanks for asking questions. I am hoping if anybody out there is listening and needs some help, I am hoping that we have helped you.

BM: And that is a perfect segue to our concluding remarks as we remind you, if you are on a cancer journey, or know someone who is, that you are not alone; so, until next time, we’ll see you on down the road.

Additional Resources:

Fans for the Cure: https://www.fansforthecure.org

SHOW NOTES

TITLE: Dusty Baker, Prostate Cancer Survivor – Sacramento, California, USA

Major league baseball player and manager Dusty Baker was aware of the presence of prostate cancer in his family.  So, when he was diagnosed, he took a proactive approach, underwent a prostatectomy and has been cancer-free for more than 20 years.  He shares his story with the @CancerInterviews podcast.

Additional Resources:

Cancer Interviews: https://www.cancerinterviews.com

Ed Randall’s Fans for the Cure: https://www.fansforthecure.org

888-301-4414

Time Stamps:

06:14 Recalls being in the on-deck circle for Hank Aaron’s historic 715th home run.

10:54 Dusty is asked when he learned something be wrong.

13:45 Being told he had cancer.

14:50 Dusty describes his treatment options.

15:48 Describes his prostatectomy.

16:45 Post-treatment urinary function.

19:28 Names the worst part of aftercare.

21:20 Dusty said recurring nocturnal urination resulted in sleep deprivation.

33:15 Advice to those who have been diagnosed or could be diagnosed.

KEYWORDS (tags):

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bruce morton

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dusty baker

cancer interviews