Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't really describe how happy I am to be having
this conversation. Sitting across from me now is is my
friend in longtime colleague, Tom Martino. For many years when
I did morning drive over on our sister station six
point thirty k HOW, I would be leaving just as
he'd be coming in for his four hour show, The
Troubleshooter Show on k HOW every weekday from ten am
to two pm. And I will note, although Tom might
(00:21):
not if I didn't, that Tom is the the longest
running talk show host in America right in America, still
on the air, still on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
There were there were some of the past that retired, yeah,
long ago.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
So as far as people on the air right now,
nobody has been on the air longer than Tom Martino
with his own show, which is just an absolutely incredible
thing with the Troubleshooter.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Show, especially in radio. Right Yeah, Oh, we're just talking
about that. So but dude, you're you're here to talk
to me.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah, And you posted a thing on LinkedIn and I've
I've known that you were going through some health troubles
and I've really wanted to come over and say something,
but I'm kind of superstitious. Yeah, and I just didn't
because I didn't know what you mean. And so I
hope you didn't think that I didn't care.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
No, no, no, I never thought that at all. In fact,
I was so busy just attending to myself. You know what,
being sick makes you narcissist, not in a bad way.
It makes you concentrate on getting better. Yeah, so tell
us for people who don't know what you've been doing.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
It was diagnosed.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
So I'm in Hawaii in December and my wife says,
you're yellow, and I said, I think that's the tan,
but literally my eyeballs were yellow. Yeah, and I thought
I had heppatitis or something. And we came home New
Year's Day. I go to the doctor January two, to
the emergency room, and they said, you need to.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Take a look.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
So they did some testing, they did imaging. I didn't
know why they did imaging. I thought I never heard
of jaunt as being a sign of something serious, but
it apparently was because they come out and said, and
the emergency room doc was well meeting. I'm not going
to even tell you what hospital it was because he
was well meeting.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
But he was an idiot.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
He literally took my hand and said, is your wife
coming back because she went out to get food and
I said yes. He said, you met, you might want
to call her and your family. And I said what
He says, you have pancreatic cancer. And I said, or
at least it's a pancreatic tumor and it looks like cancer.
And here's what he said, as you probably have heard,
(02:21):
it's ninety seven percent fatal within the first year and
a half or two years. And I thought, I'm going
to die, and so I started dealing with you know,
I got to get things done for my kids and
all that. I had kids late. So then the GI
doc comes in. The surgeon says, we have to put
a stint in to drain those billy rubens where you're
(02:44):
going to die from poisoning, not cancer, but we got
to get in there. So he goes inside and tries
to put a stint in and he couldn't. At that
hospital again, I don't want to name them, they're good people,
and he said, we don't have the equipment. We just
didn't have the camera. We couldn't get the stent in.
And I said, that's when I woke up from general Assia. Yeah,
And it was about two in the afternoon and I said,
(03:07):
now what he says, I'm going to send you over
to U See Health.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Thank god he did.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
What a team and I went, but he said, I
want to tell you something, and I really shouldn't. I'm
not an on collagist, but I had an endoscope in
there and I was looking around and I can't see
anything except one tiny tumor pressing right on your bial duct.
It is so far on the head. It gave you
immediate symptoms, he says, But look at I don't know
(03:33):
if it advanced. It could be in lymptoms. I don't know,
but what I see is an isolated tumor. So I
went over to U See Health and they had the
equipment to get the stent in and I immediately felt
better because it drained all the poisons from me.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
But because I had two of those.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
In my pancreas, it landed me in the hospital for
about eight days with pancreatitis. Because pancreases don't like being touch.
So I was in the hospital during that eight days.
That cancer team came in and talk to me and said,
do you understand how fortunate you are? You know three
percent of the diagnoses are operable and totally isolated and
(04:12):
ready to go. In fact, Steve Jobs had the same
diagnoses I had. Do you understand this? And he chose
not to go with surgery. He could have saved his life.
He said, I'll do natural means. But I mean so,
I said, well, what does that mean? They said, look,
we think we can go for the cure on this
one because they tell you right up front, We're going
to do what we can to extend your life with me,
(04:33):
they said. And I peeked at the clipboard and it
said curative. All the treatments were curative, not palliative, not
life extent, but just curative.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
They kept saying curative. So I was happy and sad.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
First of all, when you hear stats like about seatbelts
and about accidents and about being hit by a drunk
driver or cancer, you never put yourself in those stats, right,
I never did?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Did you ever just say? That's? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
When we hear about status, about plane crash, about anything,
we never really put ourselves in the situation.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I was a BIS.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
And by the way, it's not crazy not to in
the sense that an incredibly tiny number of people are
ever actually impacted by plane crashes or lightning right.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Or even Pan's right.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
So I put myself as a bystander in life. I
would watch people get diseases, I would watch people get
get hurt.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I would, and I was, I.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Was empathetic, but I never It's a weird situation. We
never put ourselves in the spot. Like when someone loses
a child. We think, oh my god, we know how
terrible it is, but we don't really think necessarily of
that ever happening to us. And that's how it is
with cancer. People hear about cancer all the time, but
(05:54):
you never think I'm gonna get cancer and and so
having cancer just change everything. I called my early morning talks.
I always used to call the mirror talks, where I
would be shaving, getting ready in the morning and thinking
about the day ahead, and I thought about absolute bull crap.
I mean, just stupid things like I'm going to make
(06:14):
sure I do this, I'm going to hit this hard,
I'm going to talk to that client. I'm going to
you know, I don't know what so and so meant
by that email, You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
It's just weird crap.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
I mean, honest to god, I wasted my time while
I'm shaving, looking at myself talking. And then when you
have cancer and the mirror, talk is you're going to
get through this day.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Man, You're going to get through it. You're you're going
to deal with it.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Because even with a great diagnosis, thank god I had one,
I'm not going to tell you I did anything.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
People say, what.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
A heroic Bret battle You beat it ross the diagnosis,
beat it.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I got it in time.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
And so then from January second to April twenty eighth,
I had chemo and it shrunk it even more.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
When was the surgery to remove it?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Til twenty eighth had chemo before surgery, Yes, after and
after they removed it.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
It was a whipple procedure.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Twenty percent of my pancres, twenty percent of my stomach,
twenty percent.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Of my colon taken out.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
So you see I lost fifty plus. Why did they
have to resect colon and set.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
You would think with such a great diagnosis, just the tumor,
why don't they just do Why don't they just dissect the.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Tumor right, just take because they will not.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
With pancretic pancreatic cancer is known to be so aggressive,
so they take what they call margins, okay, and they
go outside. But they confirmed it wasn't spread and so
in fact, it's just amazing. They took forty five lymphones
but they didn't have to, I mean there were and
then they would test them, test them, test them. So
(07:43):
they got such big margins. Like with skin cancer when
they take out of growth, they go outside, so they
got my margins. They thought I might be diabetic. Guess what,
my pancreas is creating insulin. I'm not even diabetic. So
I had one of the best outcomes you can have.
And at the end of my chemo, which I had
five afterwards, so a total of ten. It's knocking the
hell out of me. My last one was last Friday,
(08:04):
a week ago. I'm still feeling the effects of it.
And as I get on and I'm going to get
stronger and stronger, but he's such it was a weird letdown.
I said, well, now what and they said, well, now
you live, you know, and I went, god, I mean
it's after fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, meaning you know, fighting,
the knowledge of fighting, the weakness, fighting, the fluless symptoms coming.
(08:25):
I was still doing my radio show, except Mark would
do it about three or four times a week now
and then I would every other week. When I was
actually in infusion, I couldn't do it. So anyway, that's
the story. I'm not heroic, but I thank God for
the for the diagnosis. Again, that's a weird one too,
because people say, oh, what you got cancer? Why are
(08:46):
you thanking God for the diagnose?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Look at I First of all, I just feel like
I was fortunate and it breaks my heart. And so
many pancreatic patients have contacted me and said, what did
you do, as if I did something, and I said,
I didn't do anything except went to the doctor, the
UCAL team. So being who I am, I don't mean
(09:12):
a celebrity, I mean an anal researcher. I consulted Mayo, M.
D Anderson, Sloan Kettering, and I wanted to know would
you do it this way? They said to me, you
will never get better care than at UCE Health and
your doctor, Richard Shulick, the surgeon is one of the
(09:33):
premier surgeons in the country.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
So that's another thing. We're fortunate. You understand that people
come from all over to go to UC Health. I
didn't realize that I didn't either.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
All of this stuff is you know, now, when I
hear somebody's father or uncle or somebody has cancer and
they're going through chemo, does my heart go out to them?
And I'm going to be starting a small sumort group
for non medical questions because ross, yeah, a million non
medical questions when you're on chemo, like about eating and
about drinking, about this, about that, not medical at all.
(10:02):
But there really is no one to call. And so
I'm not the first one to think of this. There
are a lot of people doing it around the country.
And I came up with the name Chemo Sabby's and
again somebody else did that back east. But I want
to just have a number of people can call just
to talk. Because at night, when I would have the
neuropathy in my hands felt like they were they were big,
(10:25):
they were giant, and I get near stuff and it
would tingle and hurt, and all I wondered, Hey, is
this normal? And again it's just it's just that I'm
here and I thank God for it, and I just.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Don't know why, but it turned out the way it did.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
If you're just joining we're talking with Tom Martinez.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
I'm sure you recognize the voice.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Longest running radio host in America now and survived pancreatic
cancer because of just the incredible fortunate circumstance of the
cancer showing.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Up in a way.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
They caused symptoms immediately, which normally doesn't know it doesn't
have on the.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Head of the pancreas usually when they're in the belly
or on the tail.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
It takes sometimes years, really years to show up. And
everyone says, why don't we all just get screened, and
we should.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
There should be.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
With a wellness check, some kind of cancer screening, and
I really believe that because you can catch stuff sooner
than later, and that would be screening is the number.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
And I have to be screened now.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
I'm going to be screened every three months, and then
every six months, then once a year, because pancreatic cancer
is known to want to come back.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
That's why we attacked it like we did. Right.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
And a friend of mine is a doctor, is telling
me about a new I don't remember the name of it,
but a new blood test that does cancer screening and
actually for pancreatic pretty.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Well, I'll be doing that. Then there's something else I'm
getting enrolled. I'm trying to get enrolled in. I'm working
with my people. Yeah, it's called the mRNA vaccine. The
guy that developed mRNA did not do it for COVID.
He did it for cancer. His idea was to program
the vaccine to detect cancer cells and then trigger the
(12:13):
spike protein, which triggers your T cells, which then kills
the cancer. Now, your T cells should automatically do that anyway,
but it's early detection, earlier than your own T cells
would find him. Now, when the Trump administration, one of
the doctors, when they heard about this research, they said,
why can't you identify it for the virus and do
(12:35):
the same thing. And that's what they did. They took
the mRNA technology, which is wonderful. It got a black eye,
but it's wonderful technology for what it was meant for.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
So I'm going to try to get enrolled in that.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
I think they're now beta or clinical trials for what though?
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Because your cancer free now? Yeah, but here's what it
is for. Here's what it is for.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
You take the vaccine once a year, I believe, And
what it does is it detects if a cell pops up,
So if a cell pops up.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Who knows ross No one's perfect.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
If a cell popped up in my lungs because one
got away, even after all the chemo, it will detect it.
The spike protein will be spiked, the T cells will
attack it. And they've done these tests and listen to this.
They can track how many times the spike protein went
to work. And they have had pancreatic cancer patients unlike me,
(13:27):
people who had it spread and then they did chemo.
They had pancretic cancer patients living way beyond five years.
I don't know how long they've been doing it, but
they say it's a remarkable drug.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Well, yeah, I was thinking of something when you were
talking about talking to yourself in the mirror before and
after the diagnosis.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah. I heard a great line one.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Time that I think applies so well to the kinds
of conversations you were having and most of us have
pre your diagnosis. You get focused on things, not just you.
We get focused on things that are urgent but not important. Right,
not a great line, and that isn't that is a
great urgent but not important.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
I mean, I can't believe some of the stuff I
lamented over I can't even believe it.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
And so let's let's stick with this for a second.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
So separate from the medical and the follow up or
lack of hopefully lack of follow up that you will
that you will need. How do you think going through
this has changed you?
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Oh my god, I am so much more empathetic.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
When people tell me they have anything, I realize they're
in disease. You know, with disease, I mean, no matter what,
it's important to them, and I get in their shoes
and think, what can we do to help you? Is
there anything we can do? Or I just listen to them.
So that's one way. Another way is I don't sweat
(14:46):
the small stuff anymore.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I just I had no love. My wife and I
have a joke. It's a joke.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
She she's had some some like leg vein surgery and stuff,
not surgery, but some of the injections sometimes and one
time she had a bit of a black and blue
and she goes, oh, this is so sore. And I
said to her, I'm so sorry you're going through that,
and she says, oh, come on, Because I'll say I'll
say things like that as a joke because of what
I was I'm sitting there post chemo.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
You know, I'm sick as a dog. And I say
to her, I'm so.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Sorry you're going through that, and I smile and she goes,
come on, now, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
And so it's like a little joke we have, or
I say to.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
People, it ain't cancer, you know, with my friends, I say,
look in the mirror, Look in the mirror right now.
You know that problem you're having with Jones and so
and so at work, it ain't cancer.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
So it changed me.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
And also, oh here's how else it did made me
a bit more paranoid in saying, wait a minute, statistics
can can.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Apply to me.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Right, so when I take my helicopter out of the airplane,
I think, wait a minute, Yeah, statistics can apply You
do everything in your power to be proactive.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Really that really, that is probably the.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Number one thing statistics apply to me, because we listened
to statistics and death tolls and news all the time
as a bystander.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
It's a great point.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
And you know, as a math nerd, I'll focus on
something else here too. So statistics can apply to you
did apply to you in a in a negative way
as far as being part of the very very small
percentage of people that gets paning created cancer and then
in a positive way.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
And being in the small, small, small.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Fraction of those who get a version of it. It
just gets caught early and is curable.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Right. But one of the.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Interesting things, and you see this in politics with political polling,
you see it in all kinds of things. People will
take either large probabilities and think of them as being
one hundred percent even though they're not right. And they
will take small probabilities and think of them as zero
percent even there even though they're not And think about you.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
On the right, when you hear ninety seven percent.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
You're hearing everyone one thinks it's one hundred one dies,
everyone dies, and you're in the three percent and that
and when you think about it this way, right, three
people think of three percent as zero, but it's not zero.
Just the same way like in politics, people thought like
Hillary Clinton was sixty percent to win, they thought it
meant one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
But if you take a thousand people and there's a
three percent chance, if you take a thousand people, there's
thirty of those people in the thousand, you can be
of a good story and that is not zero.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
That is a good point. You're right.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
When we hear eighty percent, we don't hear eighty percent.
Eighty percent of you are gonna, you know, do this
or do that. We think of it as everyone right.
We never think of us being in the minority.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Right, But it's not. And the difference is enormous.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
As you're living proof of even lightning strikes, so I
look at lightning differently.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
I'm really serious when I tell you that stats do
apply to me. I am not above it all. Wow,
so you're kind of skinny.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
I'm guessing a lot of that is from some would
be from the surgery, but I'm guessing most is from chemo.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Right, fifty pounds, So now you just do.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
You have any diet restrictions or just change you're making
voluntarily to your diet?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
And how are you going to get? Like strong?
Speaker 3 (18:00):
And I don't have a gall bladder and I lost
a part of my stomach at pancreas and.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Call it So here's what I did.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
You eat small meals more often, in fact, other than
the cancer part of it.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
It's forcing you to be healthy.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
It's forcing you because you can't tolerate bad food. You
can't tolerate it. So I'm just going to eat well.
I'm going to eat small meals more often as I
have been doing. And then but I don't want to
gain all my weight back anyway. I mean, in a
strange way, it's for me to reset at a different point.
And they said I'll never get back to where I
(18:35):
was anyway. And I worked out three times a week.
Now I'm only doing once a week. So I'm going
to get back to that as I so as I
gain weight back, it's not going to just be seventy
one year old flab.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Toel Martino is host of The Troubleshooter Show on our
sister station six point thirty k HOW each weekday.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
From ten am to two pm.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
He is the longest running host talk show host in
the entire country who's on the air right now. And gosh,
I'm just so grateful to be able to sit here
and talk to you and hear you.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
I mean, I love doing it, and the reason I
do it is not to toot my own horn, but
to tell people, listen, you know, you got to be
in it to win it. Even those who's had there
have been people ross really with stage two and three
with the pancreatic cancer that have beaten it. Really, I mean,
it doesn't have to be one or pre stage one.
(19:30):
There have been people. I know my mother in law
fourth four stage colon cancer Colin. She had surgery and
some chemo thirty years or thirty five years ago, cancer free.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Wow, never came back stage four.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
You see again, when we hear stage four, we hear
you're a goner. Yeah, but there are outliers, and that's
what I want people to do, to be the outlier.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Thanks so much for spending some time with us. Tom,
Thank you very much
Can't really describe how happy I am to be having
this conversation. Sitting across from me now is is my
friend in longtime colleague, Tom Martino. For many years when
I did morning drive over on our sister station six
point thirty k HOW, I would be leaving just as
he'd be coming in for his four hour show, The
Troubleshooter Show on k HOW every weekday from ten am
to two pm. And I will note, although Tom might
(00:21):
not if I didn't, that Tom is the the longest
running talk show host in America right in America, still
on the air, still on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
There were there were some of the past that retired, yeah,
long ago.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
So as far as people on the air right now,
nobody has been on the air longer than Tom Martino
with his own show, which is just an absolutely incredible
thing with the Troubleshooter.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Show, especially in radio. Right Yeah, Oh, we're just talking
about that. So but dude, you're you're here to talk
to me.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah, And you posted a thing on LinkedIn and I've
I've known that you were going through some health troubles
and I've really wanted to come over and say something,
but I'm kind of superstitious. Yeah, and I just didn't
because I didn't know what you mean. And so I
hope you didn't think that I didn't care.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
No, no, no, I never thought that at all. In fact,
I was so busy just attending to myself. You know what,
being sick makes you narcissist, not in a bad way.
It makes you concentrate on getting better. Yeah, so tell
us for people who don't know what you've been doing.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
It was diagnosed.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
So I'm in Hawaii in December and my wife says,
you're yellow, and I said, I think that's the tan,
but literally my eyeballs were yellow. Yeah, and I thought
I had heppatitis or something. And we came home New
Year's Day. I go to the doctor January two, to
the emergency room, and they said, you need to.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Take a look.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
So they did some testing, they did imaging. I didn't
know why they did imaging. I thought I never heard
of jaunt as being a sign of something serious, but
it apparently was because they come out and said, and
the emergency room doc was well meeting. I'm not going
to even tell you what hospital it was because he
was well meeting.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
But he was an idiot.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
He literally took my hand and said, is your wife
coming back because she went out to get food and
I said yes. He said, you met, you might want
to call her and your family. And I said what
He says, you have pancreatic cancer. And I said, or
at least it's a pancreatic tumor and it looks like cancer.
And here's what he said, as you probably have heard,
(02:21):
it's ninety seven percent fatal within the first year and
a half or two years. And I thought, I'm going
to die, and so I started dealing with you know,
I got to get things done for my kids and
all that. I had kids late. So then the GI
doc comes in. The surgeon says, we have to put
a stint in to drain those billy rubens where you're
(02:44):
going to die from poisoning, not cancer, but we got
to get in there. So he goes inside and tries
to put a stint in and he couldn't. At that
hospital again, I don't want to name them, they're good people,
and he said, we don't have the equipment. We just
didn't have the camera. We couldn't get the stent in.
And I said, that's when I woke up from general Assia. Yeah,
And it was about two in the afternoon and I said,
(03:07):
now what he says, I'm going to send you over
to U See Health.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Thank god he did.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
What a team and I went, but he said, I
want to tell you something, and I really shouldn't. I'm
not an on collagist, but I had an endoscope in
there and I was looking around and I can't see
anything except one tiny tumor pressing right on your bial duct.
It is so far on the head. It gave you
immediate symptoms, he says, But look at I don't know
(03:33):
if it advanced. It could be in lymptoms. I don't know,
but what I see is an isolated tumor. So I
went over to U See Health and they had the
equipment to get the stent in and I immediately felt
better because it drained all the poisons from me.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
But because I had two of those.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
In my pancreas, it landed me in the hospital for
about eight days with pancreatitis. Because pancreases don't like being touch.
So I was in the hospital during that eight days.
That cancer team came in and talk to me and said,
do you understand how fortunate you are? You know three
percent of the diagnoses are operable and totally isolated and
(04:12):
ready to go. In fact, Steve Jobs had the same
diagnoses I had. Do you understand this? And he chose
not to go with surgery. He could have saved his life.
He said, I'll do natural means. But I mean so,
I said, well, what does that mean? They said, look,
we think we can go for the cure on this
one because they tell you right up front, We're going
to do what we can to extend your life with me,
(04:33):
they said. And I peeked at the clipboard and it
said curative. All the treatments were curative, not palliative, not
life extent, but just curative.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
They kept saying curative. So I was happy and sad.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
First of all, when you hear stats like about seatbelts
and about accidents and about being hit by a drunk
driver or cancer, you never put yourself in those stats, right,
I never did?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Did you ever just say? That's? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
When we hear about status, about plane crash, about anything,
we never really put ourselves in the situation.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I was a BIS.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
And by the way, it's not crazy not to in
the sense that an incredibly tiny number of people are
ever actually impacted by plane crashes or lightning right.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Or even Pan's right.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
So I put myself as a bystander in life. I
would watch people get diseases, I would watch people get
get hurt.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I would, and I was, I.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Was empathetic, but I never It's a weird situation. We
never put ourselves in the spot. Like when someone loses
a child. We think, oh my god, we know how
terrible it is, but we don't really think necessarily of
that ever happening to us. And that's how it is
with cancer. People hear about cancer all the time, but
(05:54):
you never think I'm gonna get cancer and and so
having cancer just change everything. I called my early morning talks.
I always used to call the mirror talks, where I
would be shaving, getting ready in the morning and thinking
about the day ahead, and I thought about absolute bull crap.
I mean, just stupid things like I'm going to make
(06:14):
sure I do this, I'm going to hit this hard,
I'm going to talk to that client. I'm going to
you know, I don't know what so and so meant
by that email, You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
It's just weird crap.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
I mean, honest to god, I wasted my time while
I'm shaving, looking at myself talking. And then when you
have cancer and the mirror, talk is you're going to
get through this day.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Man, You're going to get through it. You're you're going
to deal with it.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Because even with a great diagnosis, thank god I had one,
I'm not going to tell you I did anything.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
People say, what.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
A heroic Bret battle You beat it ross the diagnosis,
beat it.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I got it in time.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
And so then from January second to April twenty eighth,
I had chemo and it shrunk it even more.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
When was the surgery to remove it?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Til twenty eighth had chemo before surgery, Yes, after and
after they removed it.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
It was a whipple procedure.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Twenty percent of my pancres, twenty percent of my stomach,
twenty percent.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Of my colon taken out.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
So you see I lost fifty plus. Why did they
have to resect colon and set.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
You would think with such a great diagnosis, just the tumor,
why don't they just do Why don't they just dissect the.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Tumor right, just take because they will not.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
With pancretic pancreatic cancer is known to be so aggressive,
so they take what they call margins, okay, and they
go outside. But they confirmed it wasn't spread and so
in fact, it's just amazing. They took forty five lymphones
but they didn't have to, I mean there were and
then they would test them, test them, test them. So
(07:43):
they got such big margins. Like with skin cancer when
they take out of growth, they go outside, so they
got my margins. They thought I might be diabetic. Guess what,
my pancreas is creating insulin. I'm not even diabetic. So
I had one of the best outcomes you can have.
And at the end of my chemo, which I had
five afterwards, so a total of ten. It's knocking the
hell out of me. My last one was last Friday,
(08:04):
a week ago. I'm still feeling the effects of it.
And as I get on and I'm going to get
stronger and stronger, but he's such it was a weird letdown.
I said, well, now what and they said, well, now
you live, you know, and I went, god, I mean
it's after fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, meaning you know, fighting,
the knowledge of fighting, the weakness, fighting, the fluless symptoms coming.
(08:25):
I was still doing my radio show, except Mark would
do it about three or four times a week now
and then I would every other week. When I was
actually in infusion, I couldn't do it. So anyway, that's
the story. I'm not heroic, but I thank God for
the for the diagnosis. Again, that's a weird one too,
because people say, oh, what you got cancer? Why are
(08:46):
you thanking God for the diagnose?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Look at I First of all, I just feel like
I was fortunate and it breaks my heart. And so
many pancreatic patients have contacted me and said, what did
you do, as if I did something, and I said,
I didn't do anything except went to the doctor, the
UCAL team. So being who I am, I don't mean
(09:12):
a celebrity, I mean an anal researcher. I consulted Mayo, M.
D Anderson, Sloan Kettering, and I wanted to know would
you do it this way? They said to me, you
will never get better care than at UCE Health and
your doctor, Richard Shulick, the surgeon is one of the
(09:33):
premier surgeons in the country.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
So that's another thing. We're fortunate. You understand that people
come from all over to go to UC Health. I
didn't realize that I didn't either.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
All of this stuff is you know, now, when I
hear somebody's father or uncle or somebody has cancer and
they're going through chemo, does my heart go out to them?
And I'm going to be starting a small sumort group
for non medical questions because ross, yeah, a million non
medical questions when you're on chemo, like about eating and
about drinking, about this, about that, not medical at all.
(10:02):
But there really is no one to call. And so
I'm not the first one to think of this. There
are a lot of people doing it around the country.
And I came up with the name Chemo Sabby's and
again somebody else did that back east. But I want
to just have a number of people can call just
to talk. Because at night, when I would have the
neuropathy in my hands felt like they were they were big,
(10:25):
they were giant, and I get near stuff and it
would tingle and hurt, and all I wondered, Hey, is
this normal? And again it's just it's just that I'm
here and I thank God for it, and I just.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Don't know why, but it turned out the way it did.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
If you're just joining we're talking with Tom Martinez.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
I'm sure you recognize the voice.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Longest running radio host in America now and survived pancreatic
cancer because of just the incredible fortunate circumstance of the
cancer showing.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Up in a way.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
They caused symptoms immediately, which normally doesn't know it doesn't
have on the.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Head of the pancreas usually when they're in the belly
or on the tail.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
It takes sometimes years, really years to show up. And
everyone says, why don't we all just get screened, and
we should.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
There should be.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
With a wellness check, some kind of cancer screening, and
I really believe that because you can catch stuff sooner
than later, and that would be screening is the number.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
And I have to be screened now.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
I'm going to be screened every three months, and then
every six months, then once a year, because pancreatic cancer
is known to want to come back.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
That's why we attacked it like we did. Right.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
And a friend of mine is a doctor, is telling
me about a new I don't remember the name of it,
but a new blood test that does cancer screening and
actually for pancreatic pretty.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Well, I'll be doing that. Then there's something else I'm
getting enrolled. I'm trying to get enrolled in. I'm working
with my people. Yeah, it's called the mRNA vaccine. The
guy that developed mRNA did not do it for COVID.
He did it for cancer. His idea was to program
the vaccine to detect cancer cells and then trigger the
(12:13):
spike protein, which triggers your T cells, which then kills
the cancer. Now, your T cells should automatically do that anyway,
but it's early detection, earlier than your own T cells
would find him. Now, when the Trump administration, one of
the doctors, when they heard about this research, they said,
why can't you identify it for the virus and do
(12:35):
the same thing. And that's what they did. They took
the mRNA technology, which is wonderful. It got a black eye,
but it's wonderful technology for what it was meant for.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
So I'm going to try to get enrolled in that.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
I think they're now beta or clinical trials for what though?
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Because your cancer free now? Yeah, but here's what it
is for. Here's what it is for.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
You take the vaccine once a year, I believe, And
what it does is it detects if a cell pops up,
So if a cell pops up.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Who knows ross No one's perfect.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
If a cell popped up in my lungs because one
got away, even after all the chemo, it will detect it.
The spike protein will be spiked, the T cells will
attack it. And they've done these tests and listen to this.
They can track how many times the spike protein went
to work. And they have had pancreatic cancer patients unlike me,
(13:27):
people who had it spread and then they did chemo.
They had pancretic cancer patients living way beyond five years.
I don't know how long they've been doing it, but
they say it's a remarkable drug.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Well, yeah, I was thinking of something when you were
talking about talking to yourself in the mirror before and
after the diagnosis.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah. I heard a great line one.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Time that I think applies so well to the kinds
of conversations you were having and most of us have
pre your diagnosis. You get focused on things, not just you.
We get focused on things that are urgent but not important. Right,
not a great line, and that isn't that is a
great urgent but not important.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
I mean, I can't believe some of the stuff I
lamented over I can't even believe it.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
And so let's let's stick with this for a second.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
So separate from the medical and the follow up or
lack of hopefully lack of follow up that you will
that you will need. How do you think going through
this has changed you?
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Oh my god, I am so much more empathetic.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
When people tell me they have anything, I realize they're
in disease. You know, with disease, I mean, no matter what,
it's important to them, and I get in their shoes
and think, what can we do to help you? Is
there anything we can do? Or I just listen to them.
So that's one way. Another way is I don't sweat
(14:46):
the small stuff anymore.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I just I had no love. My wife and I
have a joke. It's a joke.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
She she's had some some like leg vein surgery and stuff,
not surgery, but some of the injections sometimes and one
time she had a bit of a black and blue
and she goes, oh, this is so sore. And I
said to her, I'm so sorry you're going through that,
and she says, oh, come on, Because I'll say I'll
say things like that as a joke because of what
I was I'm sitting there post chemo.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
You know, I'm sick as a dog. And I say
to her, I'm so.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Sorry you're going through that, and I smile and she goes,
come on, now, you know.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
And so it's like a little joke we have, or
I say to.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
People, it ain't cancer, you know, with my friends, I say,
look in the mirror, Look in the mirror right now.
You know that problem you're having with Jones and so
and so at work, it ain't cancer.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
So it changed me.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
And also, oh here's how else it did made me
a bit more paranoid in saying, wait a minute, statistics
can can.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Apply to me.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Right, so when I take my helicopter out of the airplane,
I think, wait a minute, Yeah, statistics can apply You
do everything in your power to be proactive.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Really that really, that is probably the.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Number one thing statistics apply to me, because we listened
to statistics and death tolls and news all the time
as a bystander.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
It's a great point.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
And you know, as a math nerd, I'll focus on
something else here too. So statistics can apply to you
did apply to you in a in a negative way
as far as being part of the very very small
percentage of people that gets paning created cancer and then
in a positive way.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
And being in the small, small, small.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Fraction of those who get a version of it. It
just gets caught early and is curable.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Right. But one of the.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Interesting things, and you see this in politics with political polling,
you see it in all kinds of things. People will
take either large probabilities and think of them as being
one hundred percent even though they're not right. And they
will take small probabilities and think of them as zero
percent even there even though they're not And think about you.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
On the right, when you hear ninety seven percent.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
You're hearing everyone one thinks it's one hundred one dies,
everyone dies, and you're in the three percent and that
and when you think about it this way, right, three
people think of three percent as zero, but it's not zero.
Just the same way like in politics, people thought like
Hillary Clinton was sixty percent to win, they thought it
meant one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
But if you take a thousand people and there's a
three percent chance, if you take a thousand people, there's
thirty of those people in the thousand, you can be
of a good story and that is not zero.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
That is a good point. You're right.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
When we hear eighty percent, we don't hear eighty percent.
Eighty percent of you are gonna, you know, do this
or do that. We think of it as everyone right.
We never think of us being in the minority.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Right, But it's not. And the difference is enormous.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
As you're living proof of even lightning strikes, so I
look at lightning differently.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
I'm really serious when I tell you that stats do
apply to me. I am not above it all. Wow,
so you're kind of skinny.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
I'm guessing a lot of that is from some would
be from the surgery, but I'm guessing most is from chemo.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Right, fifty pounds, So now you just do.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
You have any diet restrictions or just change you're making
voluntarily to your diet?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
And how are you going to get? Like strong?
Speaker 3 (18:00):
And I don't have a gall bladder and I lost
a part of my stomach at pancreas and.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Call it So here's what I did.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
You eat small meals more often, in fact, other than
the cancer part of it.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
It's forcing you to be healthy.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
It's forcing you because you can't tolerate bad food. You
can't tolerate it. So I'm just going to eat well.
I'm going to eat small meals more often as I
have been doing. And then but I don't want to
gain all my weight back anyway. I mean, in a
strange way, it's for me to reset at a different point.
And they said I'll never get back to where I
(18:35):
was anyway. And I worked out three times a week.
Now I'm only doing once a week. So I'm going
to get back to that as I so as I
gain weight back, it's not going to just be seventy
one year old flab.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Toel Martino is host of The Troubleshooter Show on our
sister station six point thirty k HOW each weekday.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
From ten am to two pm.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
He is the longest running host talk show host in
the entire country who's on the air right now. And gosh,
I'm just so grateful to be able to sit here
and talk to you and hear you.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
I mean, I love doing it, and the reason I
do it is not to toot my own horn, but
to tell people, listen, you know, you got to be
in it to win it. Even those who's had there
have been people ross really with stage two and three
with the pancreatic cancer that have beaten it. Really, I mean,
it doesn't have to be one or pre stage one.
(19:30):
There have been people. I know my mother in law
fourth four stage colon cancer Colin. She had surgery and
some chemo thirty years or thirty five years ago, cancer free.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Wow, never came back stage four.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
You see again, when we hear stage four, we hear
you're a goner. Yeah, but there are outliers, and that's
what I want people to do, to be the outlier.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Thanks so much for spending some time with us. Tom,
Thank you very much
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