Joy After Cancer
- TODAY co-anchor Al Roker is grateful for his health, his family and his “dream job” as he jets off to Paris to cover the 2024 Summer Olympics for NBC. The Opening Ceremony kicking off next week on July 26 and Roker turns 70 in August. He told Parade magazine all about his action-packed summer in a new cover interview.
- The beloved meteorologist was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer in 2020. He underwent a radical prostatectomy, which removes the entire prostate, along with some tissue around it. Side effects may follow this procedure, which may include erectile dysfunction and urinary incontinence. Roker, who has said everything is “working fine,” is a big advocate for getting men in to get screened.
- In recent years, treatment protocol has been changing, and more doctors are using the active surveillance method, or “watch and wait,” which is where your cancer is monitored without performing surgery. These are only for lower risk and less aggressive cancers, but this news will hopefully make men less fearful of going to the doctor.
- Prostate cancer screening guidelines released this year now urge Black men to begin screening at 40 years old, which is 10 to 15 years earlier than men at average risk. The National Cancer Institute says among Black men, death rates are higher or more than twice that of white men, sparking increased efforts to boost early detection for this demographic.
The Queens, New York native, a prostate cancer survivor and advocate, dished about how much he is loving life lately in a new cover interview with Parade magazine — which happens to be his fourth. And after nearly 30 years with NBC, Roker says he will never get tired of it.
Read MoreRecalling His First Olympics
During his first Olympics in 1996, he called his mom complaining about the Atlanta heat. “Oh, you poor baby,” she said. “You’re getting to be someplace where most people would give their teeth to be. You get to meet these athletes and do things most people don’t get to do.”
“I feel really bad for you!” she had teased.
For this year’s Olympics, Roker is looking forward to spending more time with his co-anchors, Hoda Kotb, Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin (he’ll be on the same flight as Melvin). And he can’t wait to show his friends a special BBQ joint in Paris he learned about from his daughter.
“We are going to be covering one of the most amazing sporting events on the planet. And we get to do it on the company dime. But what I love the most is that the four of us get to spend time together.
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“Normally when we’re here [at New York’s Rockefeller Center], we finish the show and go to our offices and then go home. But this will be like summer camp.”
Turning 70 Has ‘Special Meaning’
As far as Roker’s joy for turning 70 on August 20, however, he admitted he will be celebrating “reluctantly.” He lost his dad, Albert Roker Sr., about “four months shy of his 70th birthday.”
“So 70 has a very special meaning to me,” Roker shared. “And I’m going to celebrate it somewhat reluctantly. My wife [Deborah] has already told me to just give in to it.”
“But it’s a change,” he added. “You know when you’re 50, you think, Oh my life is halfway over. When you’re 70, it’s more than half over. But that doesn’t keep you from enjoying it and being able to appreciate the things you get to do.”
With the prostate cancer survivor’s prior health struggles, however, overall he definitely has “No complaints!”
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“I’m so appreciative of my coworkers and my family—and obviously all our viewers who put up prayers and positive thoughts,” the father of three said. “They say it takes a village, but I had a city taking care of me.”
Becoming a Grandfather
And for good reason, because when Roker made it through he became a grandfather, which has been one of the greatest joys of his life.
Sky, his daughter Courtney’s little girl, just turned one and has started crawling.
“As somebody once told me, if I knew grandchildren would be this much fun, I would have had them first!”
Now that Roker is in good health, he is experiencing even more joy with his family, which is beautiful to see.
Al Roker: Prostate Cancer Survivor
In 2022, Al Roker suffered from dangerous blood clots after going through prostate cancer.
“It’s a good news-bad news kind of thing,” Roker told TODAY at the time of his 2020 diagnosis. Like many others, he had almost delayed his appointment because of the pandemic.
RELATED: Staggeringly Higher Prostate Cancer Rates for Black & Latino Men
“Good news is we caught it early. Not great news is that it’s a little aggressive, so I’m going to be taking some time off to take care of this.”
In November 2020, he explained he would be having surgery. “My first reaction was, ‘I just want this out. I don’t want to do radiation,’” Roker previously told SurvivorNet.
“At the end of the day, I thought, ‘surgery first,’ then I thought, ‘no, maybe radiation,’ then I went back and (said), ‘no, surgery.’ That was that. Once I make a decision, I don’t really second guess it.”
So he had his prostate and some surrounding tissue and lymph nodes removed. This type of surgery, a radical prostatectomy, is known to affect a man’s sexual function since it requires removing the seminal vesicles.
“There really was no pain,” Roker said on how he felt post-operation. “The biggest issue, obviously, is sexual function, and there’s treatment for that. I’m happy to say everything’s working fine.”
New Protocol for Prostate Cancer
Prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer in males, typically affecting 1 in 8 during their lifetime. New guidelines released last year urge Black men to begin screening at 40 years old, which is 10 to 15 years earlier than men at average risk.
In recent years, treatment protocol has been changing, and more doctors are using the active surveillance method, which is where your cancer is monitored without performing surgery.
This approach was initially met with some controversy by the medical community, but a groundbreaking 10-year study‘s findings revealed in June that there is no significant difference between using a “watch-and-wait” approach to monitor a tumor vs. undergoing treatment in low-risk cases. Keep in mind that early-stage does not always mean low-risk.
Since Roker said his prostate cancer was “pretty aggressive,” he may not have had the option, but now men with those lower risk, less aggressive cancers do.
“With low-risk prostate cancer, your risk of cancer getting out of the prostate and spreading to other parts of the body is really, really low,” Dr. Stephen Freedland, a urologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, explained to SurvivorNet.
How Prostate Cancer Survivors Preserve Sexual and Urinary Function
Two of the biggest worries patients have about their prostate cancer treatment are sexual and urinary function. Of course, they are valid concerns.
- Between 10% to 30% of men who undergo radiation for prostate cancer experience urinary irritation, frequency, urgency, or retention after treatment.
- Up to 20% of men who undergo surgery have urinary incontinence, or the involuntary leakage of urine.
More than half – and up to 80% – of men report difficulty getting or maintaining an erection after surgery or radiation for prostate cancer. - The majority of men who have surgery and radiation have problems with ejaculation, at least temporarily.
A New Type of Procedure to Help Reduce Risk of Side Effects
A new type of procedure known as partial gland ablation may help reduce the risk of these common issues while still doing a good job of treating the cancer.
Learning More About Partial Gland Ablation
This is welcome news for men who are good candidates for the procedure — those who have localized prostate cancer, where the disease is confined to specific areas within the prostate gland.
“Most men get back to most regular activities as soon as the catheter is out,” Dr. James Wysock, a urologist specializing in urological cancers at the Perlmutter Cancer Center at NYU Langone, previously told SurvivorNet.
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