O’Donnell said this Thanksgiving will be a more uplifting for him time compared to last year when he was still in treatment for prostate cancer and working to get back to his normal life. He said he’s thankful.
“Last year, I didn’t have any hair,” O’Donnell said.
He has more to look forward to, like the holidays and traveling with his family, now that he has made it through some of the tough parts of his cancer journey, he said.
“This year, I feel so thankful that I’m in good shape,” O’Donnell said. “There’s battles ahead. I understand that, but I’m in good shape right now, and I’m doing the things that I’ve always wanted to do. My life has not slowed down at all, and I enjoy living the life that I’m living, and I enjoy having the family that I have.”
‘It hit the family pretty hard’
O’Donnell first caught his cancer after getting an abnormal prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test result. The test looks at the levels of PSA, which is a protein produced by the prostate gland, found in the blood. Lower results, such as 1-4 nanograms of PSA per milliliter, are normal while higher results may indicate a problem.
O’Donnell’s PSA came back with a 5 ng/mL, and while it was still low, tests revealed the Oakwood resident had cancer. It was confirmed for him on one of his daughters’ birthdays that he had prostate cancer with some spread.
“It hit the family pretty hard,” O’Donnell said. His wife, Debra, and their daughters, Lili and Lauren, rallied around him. The daughters took turns with helping their parents, making sure O’Donnell was getting everything he needed.
“When I was first diagnosed, it was like a trainwreck,” O’Donnell said. “Every negative emotion came out. There was sorrow. There was anger.”
He wondered why it was happening to him, particularly as he had always taken good care of his physical health. O’Donnell regularly goes to CrossFit. He has participated in a dozen marathons and hiked the Grand Canyon multiple times.
“When this hit me, it was like, you’ve got to be kidding me,” O’Donnell said. “I was shocked.”
With the help of his family, friends and colleagues, he was able to get out of the mental rut he was in after he first received the news.
“I’m not going to sit here and be sorry for myself,” O’Donnell said.
The boss is the patient now
As Kettering Health’s executive director of pharmacy, O’Donnell was receiving treatments at one of the places within the health system that he helps manage.
“Anything pharmacy-related, I manage, including the pharmacy where I’m receiving treatment at,” O’Donnell said. “It is kind of unusual having the boss be the patient, but that’s exactly what happened.”
O’Donnell, who underwent multiple rounds of chemotherapy and radiation to treat his cancer, didn’t let his cancer journey deter him from his life passions.
“I lost my hair, but other than that, I felt fine,” O’Donnell said about his experience on chemotherapy. “The weirdest thing was, the first day that I got chemo, I actually went up to SugarCreek (MetroPark) and went jogging, and I ran across one of the oncology pharmacists out there. And they’re like, ‘What are you doing?’ And I was like, ‘I feel fine.’”
Now, his PSA is undetectable, he said, so he is in remission, but to him, this is more like a chronic illness that he will have continue to watch for in case the cancer comes back.
Credit: Jim Noelker
Credit: Jim Noelker
Keeping up-to-date on cancer screenings
O’Donnell first caught his cancer after doing routine testing, which is generally recommended for every other year. Now he will be getting check-ups more often, but O’Donnell is encouraging people to keep up on their regular cancer screenings as recommended by people’s doctors.
“My case was just really unusual because I had been getting routine PSAs, but for some reason, this was kind of an odd aggressive form that got out of the prostate quicker than what was really normal,” O’Donnell said.
O’Donnell has returned to the Grand Canyon since he reached remission, as well as hiked in the Great Smoky Mountains and more.
“We’re only given so much time on Earth,” said O’Donnell, who is in his 60s. “I’m not going to sit back and let a disease control what I do, who I am. I want to be happy.”
O’Donnell is also trying to spread the message about the importance of undergoing regular cancer screenings.
“One of the happiest moments that came to me was when I was kind of pushing the message out to people within the hospital through a different video series that was done,” O’Donnell said.
The message resonated with at least one of his colleagues who told O’Donnell that O’Donnell’s message to get tested inspired him to do so.
“They were able to find out that they had early stages of prostate cancer,” O’Donnell said. “If I hadn’t put that video together, then maybe they would not have discovered that they had early stage prostate.”
When O’Donnell got his annual screening done that uncovered his own cancer, he hadn’t felt any symptoms of the cancer at that time. If he had waited until he experienced symptoms, he may have had to face a more aggressive form by then.
“If I would have waited...would it have come to the point where you only have two or three years left of living and that’s it?” O’Donnell said.
O’Donnell still wishes he would have gotten tested sooner, even though he had stuck to the routine schedule of testing.
“But on the other hand, I’m glad I did have it done when I did, because it could have been all over me, and there’s really probably nothing they could have done,” O’Donnell said.
‘Your lifespan is not forever”
O’Donnell plans to return to the Grand Canyon, one of his favorite places to visit and hike, in the near future.
The canyon, carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, is about 277 miles long and up to 18 miles wide. For O’Donnell, it’s an apt metaphor that reminds him that life is brief.
“You see this giant canyon that the rocks are 1.5 billion years old at the bottom, and then you realize, in the big scheme of things, your lifespan is not forever,” O’Donnell said. “I’m a faithful person, so there is, to me, a place after here, even though I want to spend as much time with my family as I can.”
O’Donnell is also trying new things, like building a patio at his home or learning new things to cook.
“I mean, I’ve got the meanest peanut butter chicken wings recipe that you’ve ever heard of,” O’Donnell said. “Just enjoy things you want to do. I’ve got this bucket list of things I want to do, and we’re going to do that.”
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