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Manhood often feels like navigating through uncharted territory, but you don't have to walk alone. Join us as we guide a conversation about how to live intentionally so that we can join God in reclaiming the masculine restorative presence he designed us to live out. Laugh, cry, and wonder with us as we explore the ins and outs of manhood together.
Staring Mortality In the Face with Robin Erkkila
00:00
Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast by Restoration Project. This is Chris Bruno and I am so excited about having my good friend Robin Erkkila back on the show. Robin, welcome back. Thank you so much, Chris. It's a pleasure to be here. Jesse had the opportunity of being with you last time and so I'm excited to have the opportunity to jump in and talk about some things in your life with you this time. So Robin, without kind of just beating around the bush much, I just want to dive in.
00:27
You've had a really challenging, really challenging last year, year plus, with regard to a significant diagnosis that's come your way. So, bring us into what's happened. Yeah, so almost two years ago, I was experiencing some symptoms that were not normal and I went into a, my...
00:54
primary care physician and ran some blood tests and the concern came up that quite frankly, my PSA was elevated. Not much, but enough that it was still in the single digits and enough that he referred me to a urologist so I could go get checked out for prostate cancer and long story short, sure enough, I've got prostate cancer. And not only was I diagnosed with prostate cancer, but…
01:22
over the roller coaster of the first several months, I was diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer. So it was super, super aggressive. It had already spread all throughout my body, not just my prostate, but in my bones and lymph nodes and everything. And it was super aggressive. And so we almost couldn't believe it at my age that I would have such an aggressive form of cancer. And so...
01:47
Yeah, that's what kicked things off. It's been almost two years since I got that diagnosis. And at the very beginning, one aspect of that was, we're talking about prognosis and so forth. What's gonna happen? Right, right. And with the quote unquote standard of care that they follow here in Colorado, he was saying we can treat it, we can't cure it, and you probably got three to five years and we're done. And it was like, it was just a gut.
02:17
a gut punch on so many different levels. So yeah, that's kind of how it started. And the longer story is that I've been through a lot. Like you mentioned, Chris, it's just been a lot over the last several years. Everything from a trial drug that I tried that didn't work to chemotherapy that didn't work, a lot of different things. And we finally got to a point where I was able to successfully take, be administered.
02:46
a nuclear medicine over the last nine months or so that has put me in full remission, which is another miracle in of itself, a complete miracle. Seriously. Wow. So, that's just the thing. Yeah, from a medical perspective, the PSA for everybody is to have your PSA checked. Check it out and do that because medically, it's worth it to get your PSA checked and see what's going on.
03:15
you know, especially, obviously for men, it's unique to men for prostate cancer, but it can happen. And that's the thing I've been learning over the last couple of years, talking with just a team of doctors and so forth. And some of the best doctors in the world on this is that they're seeing it happen in younger and younger men. So yeah, that's the, that's the, the quick synopsis of, of, uh, oh my gosh, it's been a heck of a couple of years. So the public service announcement is to have your PSA checked.
03:45
And the beautiful thing especially as we're on a podcast for men is that that doesn't require any invasive examinations as you might expect with prostate. It's a blood test. But here's the thing, Robin, you started to go from just a few little symptoms to stage four in a matter of what? A couple of days? Weeks? Weeks.
04:13
of understand, like seriously, that's crazy. So yeah, it was absolutely insane. I mean, when I was first diagnosed, it was like, okay, we're going to do the radical prostatectomy, get your prostate out. But then they go, but before we do that, let's scan and see if there's anything else. And sure enough, they found it, it spread. So at first it was like, yeah, you just have prostate cancer and you're young. It's probably just prostate cancer. You're fine. And then a couple of weeks later, it's like, no, no, no, wait, wait. It's spread everywhere.
04:42
There's a lot more. Yeah. Massive stage four prostate cancer. Yeah. So yeah, it's just like I said, there was just all kinds of hills to climb and a wide range of emotional reactions just in the first six months alone as things progressed. Take us through what some of those emotions were in those first six months. What did that look like to walk that journey for you? So I mean the...
05:13
It's the whole wide range of emotions and I could go through them in a matter of seconds. So you start off with, you get up in the morning and you're like, I feel pretty good, everything's great. I feel pretty good. But then maybe some of the bone pain would set in and it would just remind me, oh my gosh, and my attitude and my emotions would just tank out. It would just be like, oh, this sucks. Why am I doing this? In addition to that,
05:42
some of the first therapies I was on and I'm still on are therapies that affect hormonal balance and so forth. So one of the things about prostate cancer is that it feeds off testosterone. And so one of the therapies is to eliminate all testosterone out of the patient's body so that then you starve the cancer, so to speak. Now that has its side effects of just emotional swings. I mean, I'm essentially...
06:09
going through menopause for lack of a better term. And so there's all the emotional swings that come with that. So it's everything from one second I can be happy to anger and sadness. And then from a more macro perspective, it's, oh my gosh, I need to get my act together because I don't know if I'm gonna have three or four or five years. I may be staring hospice in the face three or four years from now.
06:38
I better start doing some things and getting some things taken care of and trying to get things in order financially, but also live and do things with my kids that I don't know if I'm going to get to do in 10 years. So it's that full spectrum. And so in that first six months, there was a lot of, okay, let's change things up completely. Let's say yes more. Let's go do this. Let's, you know, I...
07:07
you know, the kids would say, oh, well, let's go get ice cream after dinner tonight. Yes, let's go. You know, everything from that to, oh, are we gonna go on this trip and go do something fantastic? Yes, we're gonna do that. And while we're on the trip, don't worry about the little details, just have fun, live life. Well, I'm curious, Robin, what, as you, I mean, so many people have different diagnoses of different kinds, right? And so I think,
07:35
whether it's cancer or something else. I'm curious if you were to give some kind of, I don't wanna say the word warning, but maybe milestones or waypoints of what it was like for you to engage all of a sudden at the age that you were when you got the diagnosis, what does it look like for you to have some engagement with your mortality at that point? Help us understand like,
08:03
what that was like. And again, I don't expect you to have all the answers and three painful points and six wonderful topics, but just some kind of like, what was that even like? The term that comes immediately to mind is mind blowing just because, you know, when I, and it's been this journey over the last two years, because the first diagnosis, it was prognosis, you know, the mentality stares you square in the face. He's saying you got three to five years. That's it.
08:32
And I've got a really good brother-in-law whose father passed away from prostate cancer about six, seven years ago. And so I was exposed to the last couple of years he was going through, he was dying from prostate cancer. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's what I've got to look forward to. This is just, it's scary. Yeah, it's incredibly scary.
08:57
and looking at that. And so you're looking at that and going, yeah, and it's mind blowing in terms of, oh my gosh, this is what I have to look forward to. I know my mortality is staring me square in the face. I know what I've got coming down the pipe here. And I know we're four years out from that. That's what's going to happen. And so, yeah, it's just mind blowing and scary and all that. And I've noticed over the years being exposed to this community now, there's some of us that go, you know what?
09:27
Okay, it's staring us in the face. Let's make the best of it. Let's do what we can do and let's go fight it. Let's fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. And then there's other guys that just give up and they accept the mortality and move on. And they don't do it. So, I took the very intentional approach of we're going to fight it and we're going to find the best doctors we can. And we're going to fight it and go through that process. And it's paid off, as I mentioned before.
09:55
I will always have this cancer, right? It's not that I'm cancer-free, I'm in remission, but the chances that it comes back is still significant. I probably know how I'm going to die now. I will probably die from prostate cancer eventually. But, you know, it's just going through that process of you've got to fight. And so that's why I think it either when you get that mortality looking at you, either one, you're going to fight it or you're going to give up.
10:27
I think there are several things that happened. One was, I mean, I got angry. There are times where I got super angry. I mean, why would this have to happen to me? There are times where I got very prayerful. You know, go through these cycles of hope and anger, hope and anger, do a lot of that. In the end, I think what's happened is it has…
10:55
it's helped my prayer life quite a bit. Bottom line, I think I had an okay, pretty strong faith to begin with. I haven't abandoned that faith. And so I think if anything, it's helped make it stronger. Wow. What was it like for you to walk through this with some other men, some brothers? So there's two aspects I'll talk about. One is the brothers that I know well.
11:22
And then others are some of the brothers I found along the way. Right? Huh? Yeah. So, yeah. So when I was first diagnosed, I was able to call some brothers and I sent out a text message and said, Hey, got some news. It's not good. And we immediately dropped everything and gathered together and laughed and cried and prayed and did that. And we would continue to do that over the coming months and years, a couple of years is, is I was able to engage them.
11:52
and they were incredibly supportive. And I've got some brothers who supported me by just being there virtually when I was at hospitals going through all kinds of tests and scans and treatments and so on and so forth. Just being there. It's been fantastic. And then there's been some guys, I will call brothers that I've met along the way. So one of the fantastic stories in this is shortly
12:21
I was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and there is an Irish pub there right by Mayo Clinic. I was sitting there and I was going, you know, it was late one night and I'm like, you know, I got nothing to do. I really don't know if I want to go to this Irish pub because I was just in Ireland and it's not going to be the same thing. I was like, what the heck? I'll go over there. And so I went over there and I sat down and I just sat at the bar and it turned out it was half price whiskey night. So that was one thing that was fantastic.
12:51
But then this man sat down next to me and we got talking. And it turns out he's 20 years my senior, but he had been diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer when he was 20 years ago, when he was my age. And he was seeing the same doctor I was seeing. Wow. And so we sat there for, I don't know, two or three hours sharing stories and talking. And it was like, Jesus just put us together there.
13:20
at that bar. I mean, you know, and it's like, you can't make this stuff up. It was amazing. And he's been, so he survived for 20 years and it gave me such an injection of hope. I can imagine. I can imagine it was a gift. And this was about halfway through my battle where before I had started that nuclear therapy. So I was still with a prognosis of, we don't know, probably maybe five to 10 years at this point.
13:48
And he's like, no, no, no, no, no, I've made it 20 years. And so he's like, just keep doing what the doctor says. We shared it with the doctor and he's like, just keep doing what that doctor says and you're gonna be fine. And just the whole culmination of it though, it just cracks me up that it was at this Irish pub. I still can't. It's amazing to think. I think the life lesson out of this story, Robin, the life lesson is always go into the Irish pub. Yes, always. When in doubt.
14:16
Go to the Irish pub, yes. When in doubt. Oh, so good, so good. Oh, well, I know there's so much more to unpack about your journey here with it, and so, so grateful that you have gotten the news of being in remission and that you are now cancer-free. That is such a delight for so many people, and I'm sure for your family, especially. And for you.
14:45
And I also, I'm also sure that the lessons, the ideas, the, the reflections, the invitations, all of that is still on the horizon. I mean, this is just a few months ago, last month, actually, that you, yeah, yeah, you got the news and still, like you said, you're still feeling hormonal because you're still on some of the things and all, all the things. So, oh, yeah, like I said, the journey's not over. I will, I have to, you know, get monitored every three months and, you know,
15:15
given blood, doing all that. And so it's gonna be an ongoing journey for a long, long time. But I think, you know, before I started to accept the fact that I probably wouldn't be around when, you know, maybe grandkids graduated from high school or something like that. Now, maybe, we don't know. Maybe, yeah. Well, may it be, may it be. Yes. Robin, thanks so much for being a part of the Restoration Project community and on the show today. It's been great to.
15:44
Be with you and hear your story and hear more of kind of where God has led you and some of the challenges and ups and downs of where you've been. So thanks so much for being on the show again. Oh, I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks. And yeah, looking forward to seeing where all this, where all this forge stuff goes. It's exciting. Me too. It is exciting. All right.