Not a morning show.
We put the spotlight on the Grace Ambassadors for this year, 2026.
We have four great ambassadors again this year.
And joining us in the studio is Gary Schwartz to talk about this.
Now, Gary, I've interviewed you many times over the years, but not on this subject
before.
Not on this subject.
Usually it was, well, it's been a variety of things, but definitely not
this.
Yeah, exactly.
So it was a new thing for you, obviously.
You've heard a lot of people, you know, going through cancer journeys.
and things like that.
And I guess one always thinks, well, hopefully it never happens to me, but it did happen to you.
Well, I think the strange thing is, I not only never thought it would happen to me, I never really thought about it.
And have friends who've had cancer, or I have a brother who died from cancer fairly last few years.
But I always consider myself just a healthy person.
I don't smoke.
I just have a pretty well.
Very well, actually.
But it never occurred to me, even though I was doing things I probably shouldn't have been doing at a younger age as far as sun exposure.
Sure, that's one of the things that we kind of, I think we grew up at a different time.
It wasn't quite, the emphasis wasn't there back then, wasn't
so much.
No, growing up on a farm, the shirts came off as soon as school was out pretty much and came back on unless it was a chilly day when school started.
sometimes wearing a hat or a cap and sometimes not even that.
The sunburn nose and the ears and mom telling you not to get a sunburn because you've been out too long and I don't think she was really referring to cancer.
I think she would just don't get a sunburn because you're going to complain about it.
And you spent lots of hours on the sidelines at football games and things like that when the sun was blaring out there.
Right.
I came here and started coaching and tracking football.
Shorts were the
dress of the day.
I remember one season I tended to wear shorts to clear up until winter.
It was a good luck charm, right?
It was a good luck charm and I was encouraged to continue even though it wasn't always the most comfortable situation.
So let's talk a little bit about your cancer journey and how that began, Gary.
Did you notice something right off the gate?
Well, I was
truly lucky, I'll be honest.
Michelle and I were sitting in the backyard, I had shorts and sandals and a t-shirt on, just enjoying the breeze and the sun, and she asked me what that little mark was on my right calf, and it was a darker, almost black spot, smaller than a pencil eraser.
And I kind of dismissed it a little bit.
And she asked how long I'd had it.
And I said, oh, it's been a couple of months.
It festered a little bit.
And then it kind of drier.
It doesn't hurt.
Not a big deal, probably a bite.
And she just said, I want you to call Dr. Dickman right now and get an appointment.
which I did.
I could tell from her voice it wasn't something that you're going to discuss.
I need to.
And I called.
I had an appointment with him the next day.
He looked at it and said, I think we'd better do a biopsy, which was done the day after that.
And that's how it was discovered.
I probably would have ignored it for more time.
But she just said, you need to get it checked right away.
And I remember after the biopsy starting to just telling from the doctor's voice and tone that this might be more serious than the bug bite.
Yeah.
When you were heading to the doctor, you probably still were thinking in your mind, you probably had doubts that this was anything like maybe you were making something too big out of what it was,
right?
I had, I honestly had not even considered it being cancer, even at that point until.
Dr. Dickman said, I think we'd better do a biopsy.
And even then it was like, oh, people have lesions and have a variety of different things.
So I never considered it melanoma.
That was the true shock.
And I remember just as if it were yesterday that we'd gone up to Minneapolis to see our kids.
And I think I had the biopsy on.
Wednesday I believe I'm not exactly sure and they said when the UW had the results they contact me and I didn't hear anything and Friday rolled around in the weekend like okay it was no big deal nobody called and I believe it was on Monday I got a call from UW and they said you have malignant melanoma and I just I just went cold it was just absolute
shock because like I said, I consider myself healthy.
Don't have those kinds of things up into me, but it did.
And they'd already made an appointment with an oncology surgeon and a dermatologist and started the process.
So it was just from that one little spot that you
found?
One little spot the sizes of maybe a pencil eraser at the largest.
Yeah,
because you are very lucky.
Most of us and myself included.
I probably would have waited a little longer saying, no, that's that's nothing.
That's an age mark.
You know,
and I have a whole variety of moles and birthmarks and freckles and whatever.
So it wasn't uncommon to see something.
Right.
So then what was the next step?
Gary, the next step, we came home, um, called Madison and confirmed the appointments and we had an appointment with
the oncologist oncology surgeon and the dermatologist and they did a preliminary check and they were both fantastic it started with the oncology surgeon and she was absolutely professional and personal and
It was great.
She took time to answer questions.
She explained the procedure for surgery.
I would have a small scar on my calf, she said, because I'll have to remove some tissue, but she was very upbeat about it, the fact that I caught it early.
She at least twice mentioned, you know, it's really lucky you caught it this early, because oftentimes people wait too long.
and then went on to the dermatology and I'll just say they do a thorough inspection of your body every freckle and mole and birthmark and anything they take a picture of it and then they refer to that when on follow-up appointments but they found nothing else or the dermatologist found nothing else and that was a great relief and then
came back.
Football practice started that week.
And I had a little trouble.
Normally I'm just preparing for football all week, but that week was really hard to concentrate.
And we started practice and I told Coach Troxel that what a prognosis was or the situation was and that I would be having surgery on Friday, August 9th.
And somehow
Some of the kids had heard, well, the rumor from some of the kids was that I wasn't going to be able to coach because I had cancer.
And so Andy and I talked about it and then he thought maybe we just addressed the team.
And so on Thursday, the day before the surgery, then to practice, we had a brief meeting and I told the team that I did have cancer.
I was having surgery on Friday next day and I'd be back to practice on Monday.
I'm going to continue practicing.
And after that, the coaches and the kids were really supportive.
And I still am touched by that today.
And I also realized how many of those kids had experienced cancer with someone that they knew.
And you could tell that they felt pretty strongly about and worried.
So, as I said, that still sticks with me today.
I bet.
Were you back at practice on that Monday then?
I had surgery on Friday.
I'd asked the surgeon when I could come back to practice, or if I could, and she said, yes, when you feel like it, you'll be a couple weeks before you're going to be able to do that.
surgeon ended up taking out more tissue than she anticipated.
Instead of a small scar, I have about a nine inch scar in my calf.
But she said after and told Michelle, first, I was still pretty groggy.
I don't remember it.
But she was 95% sure that she'd gotten everything.
And they also did some lymph checks and it had not spread.
And so she was really confident and upbeat about that.
Had to be able to show them I could walk on crutches before I could leave.
And I had a numb leg with a whole bunch of padding and groggy as could be.
But I staggered around enough that they did let me come home.
And I was back in practice on Monday.
Michelle drove me to practice and then coaches helped me get into the UTV and I pretty much rode around for a couple days and then I was able to navigate on my own on crutches.
I was off of those in two weeks and everything just moved along.
Yeah, that's awesome.
So that's the only place, the only place in your body where he had surgery.
Right.
Only place followed up in two weeks and then I think in
four weeks or six weeks with the oncologist everything was going great dermatology I met with I think that was again every four weeks for a bit everything was fine and now they move those appointments I don't see an oncologist at all at this point and I have a dermatology appointment once a year just for screening and they
compare everything to what they originally took for pictures.
A couple of years ago, there was a different dermatologist who saw something suspicious, she thought.
I thought it was always there, but at this point, I don't argue.
If they think we need to check this out, you go check it out.
It's fine with me.
And it turned out to just be some scar tissue from the surgical incision.
There's nothing to worry about.
Yeah, it's been great and And that's why at the beginning of this I wasn't sure that I really had a story to tell because I didn't have chemo I didn't have radiation.
I didn't have a lot of pain and long treatment plans But the oncologist and then the dermatologist also said the same thing she said you were lucky you caught this so early because
Most men your age, and that's a quote, wait way too long to even go to see their own family doctor, let alone take it to this point.
Thank goodness for sitting in the backyard with Michelle and pair of shorts.
Yeah.
Well, it pays to have a good woman by
that.
Yes,
it does.
That does help.
That's for sure.
But I think, yeah, the key word is early.
You caught it early.
And hopefully, and that's one of the things now that you're an ambassador, maybe you can be that that person that maybe somebody thinks of when they think, oh, maybe I'll put it off.
But what about Gary Schwartz?
Remember, he went in and he got checked.
And, you know, I mean, that's probably one of the motivating factors for being in a band.
through this year, isn't it, Gary?
It was.
Like I said at the beginning, I really didn't think I had a story and yet this may be an extremely important story for someone because if you're not sure, check it out.
And even if you were a friend or spouse or significant other of someone and you are wondering or a little suspicious, be assertive and really encourage them to check it out.
Hopefully, there's nothing, but if there is, get taken care of quicker, it's wonderful.
Right, and Dr. Dickman, obviously, you know, he was the first one on your road to, you know, getting better was, you know, because if he would not have suspected something, you would have went on your merry way, probably.
Right.
I just was so lucky to be, this whole path has just been one continuous
dealing with really professional people that took things seriously.
We're also very personal.
I felt really good.
I was not just another case.
Michelle, I've talked about how that idea of not being on the assembly line for like even the surgery part of thing.
The whole team met with us and explained what was going to happen and very positive about the outcome along with it, which I think
went a long ways.
I think positive mindset is very key for anybody's cancer journey, isn't it?
Well, I've always been pretty upbeat person for the most part, I think, and a good sense of humor.
And this slowed me down, but Michelle and I talked after our first meeting before the surgery, first meeting with the oncologist and the dermatologist, and we just said this was going to be a positive outcome.
We're going to
focus on it being positive and I know some people kind of look at things like this as a roadblock but my view is it's a detour and I'm still going to get to where I want to get it may take me a little longer or something maybe a little different but
I'm going to get there.
Yeah, still get up those stadium steps to the booth on football nights, right?
Give it a
try.
Yeah,
absolutely.
So you were asked to be an ambassador, I believe last year.
And why did you decide to step forward this year, Gary?
Well, I was asked again.
And in the meantime from last year, this year, I really felt that this idea of getting on something and checking it out right away is really important.
And I was one of those lucky ones that
just got there at the right time and maybe that's unique.
I don't know, but I just wanted to get that message out to people.
You and Michelle have supported Grace before, but it has different meaning
now to you, doesn't it?
It does.
Grace is just a wonderful organization in so many ways of supporting people, but I think also the whole cancer awareness aspect of it's important.
And I've read ambassador stories in the past and never considered up until this point that I'd ever be one.
It's just it's a great organization.
We try to donate to it every year for their fundraisers and take part in
I know you've made some some cool things too that we've auctioned off,
right?
Yeah, and I have a couple this year that are going to be auctioned off
good
We look forward to that as well.
You'll have a busy day on August 14th.
If you go to the scrimmage, the football scrimmage, and then get back for grace that night.
That's the master plan at this point.
Uh-huh.
Wow.
Yeah, that'll keep you hopping.
I don't know about hopping, but at least moving.
Well, always good to see you, Gary.
Anything else you want to add that I didn't ask today?
No, I think that pretty well covers it.
I think the other thing, my new normal is
I wear long sleeve UV shirts.
I try to avoid the sun between basically 10 or 11 and three o'clock in the afternoon.
I wear sunscreen, SPF 50, even at football practice, which is four o'clock.
But I really become sun conscious, which, like you said, we didn't think about when we were kids.
No.
But it's really important.
And I mean, that might be my other message is that take care of yourself and you can
screen yourself a lot too.
Sure.
You're no longer a leg model with your shorts though because
you had surgery on your lap.
I don't think I was ever a leg model.
All right.
Well, we look forward to it and we'll be seeing you at Grace.
I know you and the other three will be representing and taking that first lap.
What's that going to mean to be, you know, leading the way that night?
Gary, have you thought about
that?
I thought about that a little bit, but not too much.
I don't know if...
leading the way is as significant as just being a representative for grace and what it stands for.
I was in the first parade we had here, the Centerfest parade.
And I was kind of, I don't know, almost overwhelmed by recognition as we went down the parade and people applauding.
It just felt good to know that grace is a very big part of this community and meant to be a small part of that big part is, it just felt good.
Great.
Thanks for stepping forward and being an ambassador this year, Gary.
Oh, thanks, Phil.
You bet.
Gary Schwartz joining us on this portion of The Morning Show.
Mike Bradford joins us on WRCO for our morning show.
He is one of the great Ambassadors for this year's 2026 great original area cancer elimination walk with grace Well, Mike first of all, thanks for stepping up and doing this.
Glad to do it.
I'm happy to be here
Glad to be here to tell your story a little bit a lot of us I guess think we know you but maybe give us a little bit of a background of yourself if you would
Well, I'm a rich and center native born and raised in rich and center graduate from rich and center high school
The only time I'd been away was six years I was in college.
I became a veterinarian.
And then I returned to Richmond Center and have worked there ever since then.
For 50 years I was a veterinarian in Richmond Center, retired in December 31 of 25.
So I've just been here almost all my life.
I do this a lot of times that I'm driving around the countryside Mike, but I I look at all the barns You know and I think about I may have been in that one of you were probably in almost all of them.
I think at one time, which
I was in a lot of I Have a lot of good memories.
I really enjoyed the people a lot.
We had wonderful clients and I remember talking my former colleague doctor Bill Hillamoney said when you retire school Do you miss it?
They said no, I don't miss the work, but I do miss the people
And I think we developed some kind of special relationships, especially on the farms, because those visits usually took maybe an hour.
And it's different than a 15 or 20 minute appointment.
You got to know people, their families.
So it was a great, great opportunity to get to know people.
And sometimes after hours and all hours of that
too, right?
That I do not miss.
I'm getting called in the middle of the night and when the phone would ring and you'd have to go out and it was January and it was cold and snowy and blowing.
Yeah, most definitely.
And you had a wonderful family.
You have a family that some of them are still in the area, right?
Well, my son David is still here and
I
laugh.
I tell at the end of my career why.
The new clinic he was a clinic manager, so I was working for my son
That's not easy
He was a pretty good boss.
I'll bet he was great Well, let's talk a little bit about your your cancer journey and and when it began Mike if you
sure sure so you know in August of 2019 my brother Daniel lives in California And he called me up out of the blue and says hey, I've just been diagnosed with prostate cancer
You maybe should get that checked out.
And I had no symptoms.
I had no reason to think.
I had any problems at all.
I got admitted.
I'd probably been to the doctor once in the previous 20 years, so it wasn't like a regular.
And my father had prostate cancer, but his was a real slow kind of a cancer.
And the doctors just kind of watch it.
He actually died of complication of heart disease.
So the cancer was there, but it really wasn't affecting his life.
So that's how it all started.
And so unfortunately, when I went to be screened, and that's what they do first stage, they kind of check you out.
And so I have a physical exam, and they do a simple blood test called a PSA.
And unfortunately, the PSA
indicated that there was a high likelihood that I had a cancer present and possibly an aggressive form of cancer.
So the next step then is to, that's just a screening test.
You know, that doesn't say you had cancer.
It just says, hey, there's a good chance there's something going on here.
So you need to do something more specific.
So then I had biopsies out of my prostate and once again, they gave me these numbers.
a pathologist looks at these little biopsy specimens under a microscope and scores them and they're looking at to see well how aggressive of a cancer that you have and the score is called a Gleason score and the numbers run from like six to ten and six being kind of like what my dad had it's a watch and watch and monitor kind of problem don't you know you keep my hand but it's not a big deal was it ten is hey there's stuff going on are you better
be doing something the doctor should be intervening somehow.
And I was a nine, which was not what I wanted to be.
So at that point, then, we knew we had a pretty aggressive cancer present.
And the next step was, OK, well, where is it?
Is it still in the prostate?
Or is it spread beyond the prostate?
Because everybody kind of determines what your options are at that point in time.
There are basically two ways you go about treating cancer.
the prostate I should say cancer the prostate one would be surgically remove the darn thing and if all the cancer is in the prostate and the problem but if the cancer is going beyond the prostate surgery may not work and at this time I was real lucky and I have a daughter Angela who is a nurse practitioner and specializes in oncology cancer treatments okay and so she was at that time in
University of Loyola in Chicago, and he got me in to see the chief surgeon down there.
So I didn't even know that one, but it's kind of nice.
And they reviewed my history and looked at the tests to this point and said, you know, we don't think we can help you.
Your cancer is beyond prostate.
It's in areas that we can't just surgically remove.
So that means you're a candidate for radiation.
And so at that point in time,
I was scheduled to see doctors in Madison Carbone Cancer Center which were really lucky to have that kind of facility so close to us.
I received 28 radiation treatments starting in December of 2019 and entering in January of 2020 and when they got done
my PSA levels, which had been 78, which normal for me would have been four.
So I had dropped to 0.69.
That becomes the basis then that they're going to monitor.
As long as the PSA stays low, they're not going to do anything else.
I guess I should back up a second before I even started radiation.
They put them on a drug called Lupron.
And what Lupron does, it shuts down the production of testosterone.
Prostate cancer cells live on testosterone.
That's what feeds them.
That's what drives them to grow.
So the thinking being, if you can keep the testosterone levels low, that the cancers doesn't have as good a chance to grow.
So I get these Lupron injections every three months before.
during and after the radiation, but about six months after the radiation was done, maybe it was a year, I quit the Lupron because my PSA level stayed low, and that's what they're doing after that.
They're just looking at your PSA, saying, okay, we know what the baseline is, it's 0.69.
And it stayed there for a couple of years, but I kept getting PSA tests every, I think it was six months or so.
Well, then in June of 23, which is about, luckily, three years after I first had my radiation completed, it jumped up to, you know, like 2.55.
So I was looking for it to double.
So from 0.69 to 2.55, it more than doubled, didn't it?
So I said, okay, cancer's back.
You can't have radiation again.
You do that.
That's a one and done kind of a thing, okay?
So the next thing they do is, okay, now you're a candidate for medical treatment.
And so I went to see an oncologist in Madison, a very good man, and he started me on the Lupron again, and another drug called abraderon.
And these drugs once again,
they shut down the testosterone in your body.
And that tends to starve the cancer cells.
And so after I started the Lupron and the Abiraterone, the PSA went to an undetectable level.
The Abiraterone is a newer drug.
My dad would never have had that when he had his cancer.
It wasn't available yet then.
But cancer cells
can produce their own testosterone, that's really crazy.
So even if you shut down the testosterone from your other normal organs in your body, the cancer cells produce their own.
But aberraterone interferes with the synthesis of testosterone, so no matter where it's coming from, even if it's coming from the cancer cells, it mess up the synthesis and keep the testosterone levels low, which kind of starve in the prostate cancer cells.
And so at this time, you're taking this aberraterone, take the lupron.
One of the side effects of lupron, you tend to get some thinning of the bone.
And so the doctor had me checked to see if my bone density was.
So I have what's called osteopenia.
Now that's not as bad as osteoporosis.
It's like an intermediate level.
Okay, but because I have this osteopenia, I have to take vitamin D and calcium supplements for my bones, okay?
And that's kind of where I am today.
I take vitamin D and calcium every day.
I get a lupron shot every three months.
I get an aberraterone treatments every day.
It's an oral pill.
One of the side effects of abradarone is it just doesn't shut down the synthesis of testosterone.
It kind of messes with the adrenal glands as well.
So I have to take a low dose of prednisone every day, because the adrenal glands aren't producing as much as they normally would, because the abradarone's kind of working on them as well.
Kind of a domino effect, you take this, you take that.
Yeah, you're right.
But it's all for a good, you seem to be doing
well.
Yeah, yeah, and then that is, you know, you kind of, I manage,
I have what they call a legal metastatic cancer, okay?
What that means is there's cancer cells present in my body beyond the original location of the prostate, okay?
But there's a limited number of them, okay?
This is a relatively new classification, maybe in the last five, six years, that kind of used to be you add cancer, you didn't have cancer.
Well, now there's kind of an intermediate stage, okay?
And it's called a legal metastatic.
It usually means there's less than five places where they found the cancer outside of the original location.
And I guess that's the only thing I should mention too is that when the cancer came back, they wanted to know, well, where is it?
So I had another test.
The first time when my cancer was diagnosed, I had an MRI to kind of diagnose where the cancer was.
And they knew that it was
beyond the prostate so surgery was out is going to be radiation.
Well this time they had another test it just just been approved like shortly after I had my first diagnosis it's called a PSMA CT scan prostate specific membrane antigen that's what that PSMA thing stands for it's a radioactive nucleotide you inject that in your body lights things up and they can see where the cancer is so that's it's very very accurate and
They can actually count and say okay, there's how many spots where the cancer is and so that's why they say okay You've got a what they call a legal metastatic five or less sites where the cancer is present You know and that's has a better prognosis than a highly metastatic cancer say if I had a highly metastatic cancer The cancer would be everywhere in my bones in my lungs, you know liver.
It doesn't look like that right now, so
That's where I have.
So I'm living with it.
But as I said in the article, I'm living.
You're living.
That's the main thing, Mike.
You know, and I think about your story.
Had your brother not called you, you may have waited a little bit longer before you ever had a doctor.
I had
never ever even bothered to look, you know.
And interestingly enough, after he called me, I am calling my brothers and
So there are four of us all together.
Turns out three of us have prostate cancer.
Wow.
So it's kind of a goofy thing, you know.
And they did do some genetic testing because I was worried, was this something I'm going to give to my kids?
Because I have three sons.
And the genetic testing says, no, it's not something that you're inheriting that way.
So once again, why did this happen?
Right.
That's the million-dollar question with cancer, isn't it?
It is.
It is.
And the other thing I thought about when you were talking, you mentioned your chemo that you did.
And it ended in January of 2020.
So that would have been right before the Earth kind of stood still with COVID.
Were any of your appointments affected then after that or
not?
No, I was so lucky because it wasn't.
I mean, I'd gotten my radiation was done.
I still had these Lupron shots, but they were like once every three months, you know, and, and no, so I was really lucky.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And as it goes now, so you're just kind of going to your, your regular visits then and taking medicine.
And
that's one thing that's really kind of neat here because the Richmond hospitals with a Kramer center are affiliated with the UW.
My first medical oncologist, that's the guy I had to see when the cancer came back, was in Madison, so I had to make trips to Madison every three months to see this gentleman.
He retired, and so they assigned me to another doctor, and thank goodness the doctor they assigned me to was this Dr. Trevor Denne, who comes to Richmond Center.
So, rather than traps and down the road to Madison every three months, I just go to the Cramer Center.
And I have my blood tests done here at the hospital.
My treatments are done with the Cramer Center, the doctors of the Cramer Center.
It's nice that way.
A couple of the facilities you mentioned here, Mike, the Carbone and the Kramer Center, both have benefited from greater Richland area cancer elimination.
Oh, absolutely.
You know, and another thing, the tests that I had done, the last tests, like I say, weren't even available when I had my first diagnosis.
This is a disease that
a lot of research is happening in prostate cancer because it is the most common cancer for men to get, okay?
And so a lot of research is going on, things are happening all the time with diagnosis and treatments.
Like I said, the abradarone that I'm on now, that wasn't available.
My dad had his cancer.
Yeah, and Grace really threw their support of these research, not only for what they do here, but all across the country.
Things are changing all the time with this prostate cancer and there's a, you know, a lot of good things happening.
Yeah, I'm not sure that they'll ever find a cure in our lifetime, Mike, but certainly they're making strides to be able to, in your case, live with it, right?
Yeah, exactly.
And some people are cured of it.
I have some clients that, you know, have had cancer and prostate cancer and I don't think we ever say cure, remission, what the right word is, but apparently they have no further.
So
I'm just one of the unlucky ones that didn't quite get it.
But once again, like you said, I'm living with it.
And it's being very well managed up to this point with the medications that I take.
So I think I consider myself very, very lucky that way, that I live when I live and that so much money has been devoted to research in this area and treatments.
And once again, grace puts a lot of money.
towards research and treatments.
You and your wife have been great supporters of Grace, but it has a little different meaning this year, doesn't it?
As an ambassador,
right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Although it was always something that I, even before I had my diagnosis, it was a, I thought a very good thing.
And not just for the treatments and diagnostics that I have been able to receive, but a lot of money.
I think the ceilings.
almost 60 percent goes directly to help people you know with their food and gas and things they need it's not paying for treatments but it's paying to help them be able to live with this and it's just a great organization and we're we're lucky to have it in our community.
Another thing that ambassadors do a lot of times, I've heard this before, is somebody hears a story on the radio and they're like, you know what, I better go get checked.
So if anything, Mike, I think you'll be grateful if somebody does, you know, because it's become quite prevalent.
And all of us, I think it's human nature just to, oh, put it off, put it off.
And so hopefully somebody hears this and goes and gets a checkup,
right?
Yeah, yeah, especially I think.
I've gotten to know a lot about this since I got my diagnosis but you know if they say anybody over a man I'm talking about and over 55 probably ought to have a PSA test done you know it's simple blood test doesn't take any at all and if there is a history of cancer in your family like there was a mine they recommend starting at 45 so we probably should have started about 20 years ago Phil.
Better late than never though.
I
guess so.
But yeah, like I say, I've met a number of my clients and former clients who have had prostate cancer.
It's amazing how many people, I think the statistics say like one in eight men at some point in their life are going to be diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Now they're not all going to die from prostate cancer.
A lot of them will be like my dad.
They'll be a kind of a watch and monitor thing.
They don't even need to be treated, but it should be checked out.
You want to make sure you're not one of the
ones like me that does need to have treatment you know because you know that's something you don't want to wait on you know and unfortunately like I say I should have probably been screened a lot earlier and maybe they could have caught it before it spread beyond my prostate at that point in time perhaps they could have gotten it you know but it's just the way it is.
Now you and I were talking before everyone on the air we all have
Cancer cells in our body.
Yeah, it's crazy.
It's like a bad lottery, isn't
it?
The genes that cause cancer are present in everybody.
Not everybody's gonna get cancer, thank God.
But the potential's there.
So, you know, if you're a high-risk individual, like I say with men, they just recommend, hey, if you're over 55, you ought to have it checked out.
um, speaking with my form client just at a meeting and he said he'd had his checked out and it was like 3.
And it varies with your age.
The older you are, the higher the number that you're allowed to have as a PSA number that is okay.
Okay.
So like for me, my, at my age, when I was diagnosed, which was 69, a normal PSA would have been four.
So I'm 78.
So that's not good.
But this other gentleman told me this was like 3.2.
So he's good, you know.
Buddy needs to keep watching that.
What's it gonna mean you'll be taking that first lap with the other ambassadors this year at Grace?
What's, what are you gonna be thinking?
Have you thought about that?
You know, I guess I have and I'm just, I'm just glad to be here Phil.
I mean, somebody asked me the other day, so I'm like, oh, they better, oh, the cancer got you.
I said, nah, it hasn't gotten me yet.
It's there, but I'm, you know, and so I'm just glad to be here, you know, and be able to do things and.
Like I say, with what's going on today and with the research and the treatments that are coming out, it's not a death sentence for me.
I hopefully will live as long as my dad.
He made it to 96.
That's kind of my goal right now.
If I get to be 96, I'll be a happy man.
Yes, you
will.
Well, that's awesome, Mike.
Good to have you in here.
Thanks again for stepping up with me and Ambassador
this year.
It was my pleasure.
And like I said, we just encourage everybody.
Grace is a wonderful organization.
I can't think of another outfit that has
Sold little overhead 98% of all the money that you're going to give to grace is going to go directly to either helping people Working on treatments and diagnosis to research, you know or buying equipment for the primer center 98% of your money is going right here to help people do something so little is going to overhead, you know
Not many organizations can say that, Phil.
Right.
And it's our organization here in town.
You're not sending money across the country to somebody else.
It's our people doing the work here.
And we're lucky to have them.
Most definitely.
We're lucky to have
them.
Well, we'll talk to you real soon, Mike.
We'll see you at the walk.
All right.
Thank you, Phil.
You bet.
Mike Bradford joining us.
One of the ambassadors for Greater Richland Area Cancer Elimination.
Again, the walk for Grace goes on on Friday night, August 14th.
Mike Bradford joins us on WRCO for our morning show.
He is one of the great ambassadors for this year's 2026 great original area cancer elimination walk with grace.
Well, Mike, first of all, thanks for stepping up and doing this.
Glad to do it.
I'm happy to be here.
Glad to be here to tell your story a little bit.
A lot of us, I guess, think we know you, but maybe give us a little bit of a background of yourself if you would.
Well, I'm a Western Center native born and raised in Western Center graduate from Western Center High School.
The only time I'd been away was six years I was in college.
I became a veterinarian.
And then I returned to Richmond Center, and I've worked there ever since then.
For 50 years, I was a veterinarian in Richmond Center, retired in December 31 of 25.
So I've just been here almost all my life.
I do this a lot of times when I'm driving around the countryside, Mike, but I look at all the barns,
you
know, and I think about, I may have been in that one.
You were probably in almost all of them, I think, at one time, weren't
you?
I was in a lot of them.
I have a lot of good memories.
I really enjoyed the people.
We had wonderful clients.
And I remember talking to my former colleague, Dr. Bill Hillamoney, said, when you retire, I said, well, do you miss it, Bill?
I said, no, I don't miss the work, but I do miss the people.
And I think we developed some kind of special relationships, you know, especially on the farms, because those visits usually took maybe an hour.
And it's different than a 15 or 20 minute appointment.
You know, you got to know people, their families.
So it was a great.
great opportunity to get to know
people.
And sometimes after hours and all hours
of
the day
too, right?
That I do not miss.
I'm getting called in the middle of the night and when the phone would ring and you'd have to go out and it was January and it was cold and snowy and blowing.
Yeah, most definitely.
And you had a wonderful family.
You have a family that
some of
them are still in the area, right?
Well, my son David is still here and I laugh.
I tell at the end of my career way.
The new clinic he was a clinic manager, so I was working for my son
That's not
easy He was a pretty good boss.
I'll bet he was great Well, let's talk a little bit about your your cancer journey and and when it began Mike if you
sure sure so you know in August of 2019 my brother Daniel lives in California And he called me up out of the blue and says hey, I've just been diagnosed with prostate cancer
You maybe should get that checked out.
And I had no symptoms.
I had no reason to think.
I had any problems at all.
I got a minute.
I'd probably been to the doctor once in the previous 20 years.
It wasn't like a regular.
And my father had prostate cancer.
But his was a real slow kind of a cancer.
And the doctors just kind of watch it.
He actually died of complication of heart disease.
So the cancer was there, but it really wasn't affecting his life.
So that's how it all started.
And so, unfortunately, when I went to be screened, and that's what they do first, they kind of check you out.
And so I have a physical exam, and they do a simple blood test called a PSA.
And unfortunately, the PSA
indicated there was a high likelihood that I had cancer present and possibly an aggressive form of cancer.
So the next step then is to, that's just a screening test.
You know, that doesn't say you had cancer.
It just says, hey, there's a good chance there's something going on here.
So you need to do something more specific.
So then I had biopsies out of my prostate and once again, they gave me these numbers.
a pathologist looks at these little biopsy specimens on a microscope and scores them and they're looking at to see well how aggressive of a cancer that you have and the score is called a Gleason score and the numbers run from like six to ten and six being kind of like what my dad had it's a watch and watch and monitor kind of problem don't
You know, you keep an eye on it, but it's not a big deal.
Whereas at tennis, hey, there's stuff going on, or you better be doing something that the doctor should be intervening somehow.
And I was a nine, which was not what I wanted to be.
So at that point, then, we knew we had a pretty aggressive cancer present.
And the next step was, OK, well, where is it?
Is it still in the prostate?
Or is it spread beyond the prostate?
Because everybody kind of determines
what your options are at that point in time.
There are basically two ways you go about treating cancer.
Of the prostate, I should say cancer of the prostate.
One would be surgically remove the darn thing.
And if all the cancer is in the prostate, end the problem.
But if the cancer is going beyond the prostate, surgery may not work.
And at this time, I was real lucky.
I have a daughter, Angela, who is a nurse practitioner and specializes in oncology, cancer treatments.
Okay.
And so she was at that time in the University of oil in Chicago and he got me in to see the chief surgeon down there.
So I had to know that one, which is kind of nice.
And they reviewed my history and looked at the tests to this point and said, you know, we don't think we can help you.
Your cancer is beyond.
The prostate, it's in areas that we can't just surgically remove.
So that means you're a candidate for radiation.
And so at that point in time, I was scheduled to see doctors in Madison Carbone Cancer Center, which were really lucky to have that kind of facility so close to us.
I received 28 radiation treatments.
starting in December of 2019 and entering in January of 2020 and when they got done my PSA levels which had been 78 which normal for me would have been four so I had dropped to 0.69 that becomes the basis then that they're going to monitor okay as long as the PSA stays low they're not going to do anything else
I guess I should back up a second.
Before I even started radiation, they put them on a drug called Lupron.
And what Lupron does, it shuts down the production of testosterone.
Prostate cancer cells live on testosterone.
That's what feeds them.
That's what drives them to grow.
So the thinking being, if you can keep the testosterone levels low, that the cancer doesn't.
have as good a chance to grow.
So I get these Lupron injections every three months before, during and after the radiation.
But about six months after the radiation was done, maybe it was a year, I quit the Lupron because my PSA level stayed low.
And that's what they're doing after that.
They're just looking at your PSA, saying, OK, we know what the baseline is.
It's 0.69.
And it stayed there for a couple of years.
But I kept getting PSA
Test every I think was six months or so well then in June of 23 Which is about luckily three years after I first had my radiation completed it jumped up to you know like 2.55 so well They're looking for it to double so from 0.69 to 2.55 it more than double didn't it so I said okay cancer's back
You can't have radiation again.
You do that.
That's a one-and-done kind of a thing, okay?
So the next thing they do is, okay, now you're a candidate for medical treatment.
And so I went to see an oncologist in Madison, a very good man, and he started me on the Lupron again, and another drug called Aberateron.
And these drugs once again,
they shut down the testosterone in your body.
And that tends to starve the cancer cells.
And so after I started the Lupron and the Abiraterone, the PSA went to an undetectable level.
The Abiraterone is a newer drug.
My dad would never have had that when he had his cancer.
It wasn't available yet then.
But cancer cells
can produce their own testosterone, that's really crazy.
So even if you shut down the testosterone from your other normal organs in your body, the cancer cells produce their own.
But aberraterone interferes with the synthesis of testosterone, so no matter where it's coming from, even as it comes from the cancer cells, it mess up the synthesis and keep the testosterone levels low, which kind of starve them.
prostate cancer cells.
And so at this time, you know, taking this aberraterone, taking the lupron, one of the side effects of lupron, you tend to get some fitting of the bone.
And so the doctor had me checked to see if my bone density was.
So I have what's called osteopenia.
Now that's not as bad as osteoporosis.
It's like an intermediate level.
Okay, but because I have this osteopenia, I have to take vitamin D and calcium supplements for my bones, okay?
And that's kind of where I am today.
I take vitamin D and calcium every day.
I get a lupron shot every three months.
I get an aberraterone treatments every day.
It's an oral pill.
One of the side effects of abradarone is it just doesn't shut down the synthesis of testosterone.
It kind of messes with the adrenal glands as well.
So I have to take a low dose of prednisone every day, because the adrenal glands aren't producing as much as they normally would, because the abradarone's kind of working on them as well.
Kind of a domino effect, you take this.
Yeah, you're
right.
But it's all for a good, you seem
to be doing well.
Yeah, and then that is, you know, you kind of, I imagine.
I have what they call a legal metastatic cancer, okay?
What that means is there's cancer cells present in my body beyond the original location of the prostate, okay?
But there's a limited number of them, okay?
This is a relatively new classification, maybe in the last five, six years that kind of used to be you add cancer, you didn't have cancer.
Well, now there's kind of an intermediate stage, okay?
And it's called a legal metastatic.
It usually means there's less than five places where they found the cancer outside of the original location.
And I guess that's the only thing I should mention too is that when the cancer came back, they wanted to know, well, where is it?
So I had another test.
The first time when my cancer was diagnosed, I had an MRI to kind of diagnose where the cancer was.
And they knew that it was
beyond the prostate so surgery was out is going to be radiation.
Well this time they had another test it just just been approved like shortly after I had my first diagnosis it's called a PSMA CT scan prostate specific membrane antigen that's what that PSMA thing stands for it's a radioactive nucleotide you inject that in your body lights things up and they can see where the cancer is so that's it's very very accurate and
they can actually count and say, okay, there's how many spots where the cancer is.
And so that's what they say, okay, you've got what they call a legal metastatic, five or less sites where the cancer is present.
And that has a better prognosis than a highly metastatic cancer.
Say if I had a highly metastatic cancer, the cancer would be everywhere, in my bones, in my lungs, liver.
It doesn't look like that right now.
That's where I have, you know, it's cool.
So I'm living with it, but as I said in the article, I'm living.
You're living, that's the main thing, Mike.
You know, and I think about your story, had your brother not called you, you may have waited a little bit longer before you ever
went to the doctor.
I had
never ever
even bothered to look, you know.
And interestingly enough, after he called me, I am calling my brothers and...
So there are four of us all together.
Turns out three of us have prostate cancer.
Wow.
So it's kind of a goofy thing, you know.
And they did do some genetic testing because I was worried, was this something I'm going to give to my kids?
Because I have three sons.
And the genetic testing says, no, it's not something that you're inheriting that way.
So once again, why did this happen?
Right.
That's the million-dollar question with
cancer, isn't it?
It is.
It is.
And the other thing I thought about when you were talking, you mentioned your chemo that you did.
It ended in January of 2020.
So that would have been right before the Earth kind of
stood still
with COVID.
Were any of your appointments affected then after that or
not?
No, I was so lucky because it wasn't.
I mean, I'd gotten my radiation was done.
I still had these Lupron shots, but they were like once every three months, you know, and no, so I was really lucky.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And as it goes now, so you're just kind of going to your regular visits then and taking
medicine.
And that's one thing that's really kind of neat.
Here, because the Richmond Hospitals with the Kramer Center are affiliated with the UW, my first medical oncologist, that's the guy I had to see when the cancer came back, was in Madison, so I had to make trips to Madison every three months to see this gentleman.
He retired, and so they assigned me to another doctor, and thank goodness the doctor they assigned me to is this Dr. Trevor Denny, who comes to Richmond Center.
So, rather than traps him down the road to Madison every three months, I just go to the Kramer Center.
And I have my blood tests done here at the hospital.
My treatments are done with the Cramer Center, the doctors at the Cramer Center.
It's nice that way.
A couple of the facilities you mentioned here, Mike, the Carbone and
the
Cramer Center, both have benefited from greater Richland area cancer elimination.
Oh, absolutely.
And another thing, the tests that I have done, the last tests,
like I say, weren't even available when I had my first diagnosis.
This is a disease that a lot of research is happening in prostate cancer because it is the most common cancer for men to get.
And so a lot of research is going on.
Things are happening all the time with diagnosis and treatments.
Like I said, the abradarone that I'm on now, that wasn't available.
My dad had his cancer.
Yeah, and grace.
Really through their support of these research not only you know for what they do here, but all across the country Things are changing all the time with this prostate cancer and there's a you know a lot of good things happening
Yeah, I'm not sure that they'll ever find a cure in our lifetime Mike But certainly they're making strides to be able to in your case live with it.
Yeah, exactly And some people are cured of I have some clients that you know have had cancer and
Prostate cancer and and I don't we ever say cure remission what the right word is, but apparently they have no further So I'm just one of the unlucky ones that didn't quite get it, you know But but once again, like you said, I'm living with it and it's being very well managed up to this point with the medications that I take so I think I consider myself very very lucky that way that I live when I live and that
So much money has been developed devoted to research in this area and treatments.
And once again, grace puts a lot of money towards research and treatments.
You and your wife have been great supporters of grace, but it has a little different meaning this
year,
doesn't it?
As an ambassador,
right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Although it was always something that even before I had my diagnosis, it was a, I thought a very good thing and not just for the treatments and, and, and.
diagnostics that I have been able to receive but a lot of money I think let's say like almost 60% goes directly to help people you know with their food and gas and things they need it's not paying for treatments but it's paying to help them be able to live with this and it's just a great organization and we're we're lucky to have it in our community.
Another thing that ambassadors do a lot of times, I've heard this before, is somebody hears a story on the radio and they're like, you know what, I better go get checked.
So if anything, Mike, I think you'll be grateful if somebody does, you know, because it's become quite prevalent.
And all of us, I think it's human nature just to, oh,
put it
off, put it off.
And so hopefully somebody hears this and goes and gets
a checkup, right?
Yeah, yeah, especially I think.
I've gotten to know a lot about this.
I got my diagnosis, but you know, if they say or anybody over a man, I'm talking about an over 55 probably ought to have a PSA test done, you know, it's simple blood tests.
Doesn't take any at all.
And if there's a history of cancer in your family, like there was a mine, they recommended started 45.
So we probably should have started about 20 years ago, Phil.
Better late than never though.
I guess so.
I guess so.
But yeah, like I say, I've met a number of my clients and former clients who have had prostate cancer.
It's amazing how many people, I think the statistics say like one in eight men at some point in their life are gonna be diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Now they're not all gonna die from prostate cancer.
A lot of them will be like my dad.
They'll be a kind of a watch and monitor thing.
They don't even need to be treated, but it should be checked out.
You wanna make sure you're not one of the
ones like me that does need to have treatment you know because you know that's something you don't want to wait on you know and unfortunately like I say I should have probably been screened a lot earlier and maybe they could have caught it before it spread beyond my prostate at that point in time perhaps they could have gotten it you know but it's just the way it is.
Now you and I were talking before everyone on the air we all have
Cancer cells in our body.
Yeah, it's
crazy.
It's like a
bad lottery, isn't
it?
The genes that cause cancer are present in everybody.
Not everybody's gonna get cancer, thank God.
But the potential's there.
So, you know, if you're a high-risk individual, you know, like I say with men, they just recommend, hey, if you're over 55, you ought to have it checked out.
speaking with my form client just at a meeting and he said he'd had his checked out and it was like three point and it varies with your age the older you are the higher the number that you're allowed to have as a PSA number that is okay okay so like for me my at my age when I was diagnosed which was 69 a normal PSA would have been four so I'm 78 so that's not good but this other gentleman told me this was like 3.2 so he's good you know
Buddy needs to keep watching that.
What's it gonna mean you'll be taking that first lap with the other ambassadors this
year at Grace?
What's, what are you gonna be thinking?
Have you thought about that?
You know, I guess I have and I'm just, I'm just glad to be here Phil.
I mean, somebody asked me the other day, so I'm like, oh, they better, oh, the cancer got you.
I said, nah, it hasn't gotten me yet.
It's there, but I'm, you know, and so I'm just glad to be here, you know, and be able to do things and
Like I say, with what's going on today and with the research and the treatments that are coming out, it's not a death sentence for me.
I hopefully will live as long as my dad.
He made it to 96.
That's kind of my goal right now.
If I get to be 96, I'll be a happy man.
Yes, you
will.
Well, that's awesome, Mike.
Good to have you in here.
Thanks again for stepping up with me and Ambassador
this year.
It was my pleasure.
And like I said, we just encourage everybody.
Grace is a wonderful organization.
I can't think of another outfit that has
sold little overhead 98% of all the money that you're going to give to Grace is going to go directly to either helping people working on treatments and diagnosis to research, you know, or buying equipment for the primer center 98% of your money is going right here to help people do something so little is going to overhead, you know
Not many organizations can say that, Phil.
And it's our organization here in town.
You're not sending money across the country to somebody else.
It's our people doing the work here.
And we're lucky to have them.
Most definitely.
We're lucky to have
them.
Well, we'll talk to you real soon, Mike.
We'll see you at the walk.
All right.
Thank you, Phil.
You bet.
Mike Bradford joining us.
One of the ambassadors for Greater Richland Area Cancer Elimination.
Again, the walk for Grace goes on on Friday night, August 14th.