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I have been bestowed an honor of sorts (Updated 8-15)

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Posted 8/6/2013 2:28 PM (GMT 0)
Cool story.

Calendar reminder set... Not that you need any more pressure to preform.... But we'll be watching for you on the 7th...
Posted 8/6/2013 2:36 PM (GMT 0)
Have fun with it, David.

 

I've done a ton of communications work in my career.  More than 10 years ago I was "ghost writing" (a subset of the) communications for the CEO of a Fortune 100 company.  You have to be short and to-the-point.  An "elevator speech," if you are familiar with that term.  Take a complex topic and boil it down to a short message relevant to a diverse audience..but clearly a lot of men. 

 

I'd be glad to offer you a script that might work for you...you could noodle it further, or offer it up here to the broader audience for refinement...   Let me know.  (email me, though...I will be very busy in the short-term & won't be checking back on HW/PC very much for a little while)   Of course, I might need to be there in person to do last-minute refinements...you did say there were 4 tickets, right?  I've been to Death Valley.

 

 

 

 

 

Post Edited (Casey59) : 8/6/2013 9:01:24 AM (GMT-6)

Posted 8/6/2013 2:38 PM (GMT 0)
CONGRATS David, that's awesome !!! Enjoy it, maybe we will catch you on tv ? You will do great .


Don
Posted 8/6/2013 2:43 PM (GMT 0)
Awesome David.

Pity they didn't get you tickets for the Georgia Tech game and you could have invited me.

Proud of you.
Posted 8/6/2013 2:59 PM (GMT 0)
David -

What an excellent opportunity to speak on behalf of the PCa community! You richly deserve it and we all know you will do a wonderful job!

Of course our own Todd would be a great source of advice of how to bring this off beautifully! Maybe the two of you will become Rock Star 1 and Rock Star 2 of the forum!

Whenever the subject of testimonial type speeches about a disease or such comes up, I am always reminded of the one that the actor Yul Brynner did against smoking, soon before he died of lung cancer. (This is the famous one, where he says "just don't smoke"). I guess it's because he made such a poignant presentation. Yours certainly won't be as somber as that one was, but maybe viewing that one (it's surely available on the web somewhere) might give you some ideas on style, timing, etc., since it did have such an impact.

In any case, we know you'll do a great job!
Posted 8/6/2013 3:26 PM (GMT 0)
Wow, overwhelmed by the wonderful response here at HW PC by my peers.

In the original offer they gave me 3 choices of dates (in case I was a die hard Clemson fan and had a game preference). The 2nd, was in October the weekend we leave in our Cruise, and the 3rd, late in November and my wife doesn't do the "cold" thing. So I picked the September 7th date. They were thrilled, because that was the date they wanted, as it coincides with "PC Awareness Week". So that was a win-win for both sides.

So Casey, you have been to "Death Valley" stadium in Clemson, SC, or Death Valley, CA?

I will pretty well follow my thoughts from the previous interviews. I will still be encouraging early PSA testing, at least to have a baseline, with an emphathis on those with family history and/or African American. Will have to figure a way to mention the controversy with the new testing guidelines without getting buried in wasted details.

We can play a game between now and then, if it were you speaking to 60K plus people, getting picked up on national feed line, what would you want to say? No wrong answers here. It's my nature to give detailed and lengthy answers, and qualified answers, blame it on my former career. So condensing the most important parts is critical in such an opportunity.

Appreciate deeply the genuine support I feel, and I am doing this for us, all of you here at HW PC, just like when Bro. Todd does with his Provenge related work, just like when Tony and Ralf and other advocates do in their work.

I want to represent what we believe in, here at HW PC. Even if it's not picked up for tv viewers, the woman at the hospital system said they were taping everything, and I would have copies of all the events for my own use. Plus they will be using them for their own promotional use.

david
Posted 8/6/2013 3:30 PM (GMT 0)
The one right out side the valley of the jolly green giant? Couldn't resist, tee hee
Posted 8/6/2013 4:06 PM (GMT 0)
Yes, been to a game at Death Valley.   I used to live in NC, and continue to make biannual (?, every two years) trips to Williams-Brice stadium in Columbia for the SC/UF home game…will be there this November.  (I'm a Gator grad for my undergraduate degree.) My opinion…I think your message will be seen as stale if you push the “PSA test everyone” message.   While we (the HW/PC participants) are acutely aware and scrutinize every printed word from the latest reports (most recently, the National Cancer Institute’s working group publication in JAMA), many others will also hear the word “prostate cancer” over the loudspeaker and associate it with overtreatment   (you don’t need to use that word ("overtreatment"), IMHO, at all).   The appropriate message for (especially for PC Awareness month) is about men being smarter (great opportunity to reference/joke about being on a college campus), and  educating themselves about men’s health issues in order to make informed decisions...and certainly the PSA test is a part of that education message being promoted by AUA, ASCO, ACS, and everyone else and their brother.   There has been a lot of good material discussed here already about the value of, and need for, more robust patient education in collaboration with their physician...good material for re-use.   Also, I would work in a mention of one or two statistics or trends in PC incidence to help get the attention of the audience up front…there is going to be a lot of men younger than you in the stadium.    But this is just my opinion...   Leaving work now for the rest of the week…available offline.        
Posted 8/6/2013 4:43 PM (GMT 0)
Casey,

Thanks for your input. Will keep it all under advisement, along with the input of anyone else that chooses to participate.

When I get it together, closer to the time, will put out a general outline of what I am planning to say.

Next time you have a need to be close to western SC, let me know and see if we can hook up.

david
Posted 8/6/2013 6:39 PM (GMT 0)
Way to go David! Be sure you wear something orange to win over the home team crowd. The Tiger fans are crazy! My brother and father graduated there so I have been to Death Valley several times.

Make us proud, I know you will!

Bill from Florida cool
Posted 8/6/2013 8:03 PM (GMT 0)
David
Congratulations. I am confident you will do extremely well.

Just one thing,
GO GAMECOCKS !!!!!!

RickyD
Posted 8/6/2013 8:11 PM (GMT 0)
My oldest son, is in his final 2 semester of their Engineering School, to graduate next May at age 36. So we do have a real tie to the college.

Living in the midst of Clemson country, one doesn't wear the colors of the Gamecocks of USC in Columbia.

David
Posted 8/6/2013 10:27 PM (GMT 0)
David -

In your upcoming talk to the stadium crowd, in thinking about it I keep coming back to one thing that you might make a point of mentioning to them, something that will very likely "stick" with them, and something that will get them to thinking as soon as they start filing out of the stadium and start driving home.

That's the "age-roughly-equals-chance-of-having-it" fact. Just say in your talk something like "If you're a 50-year old man, there's about a 50-percent chance you already have it, and if you're a 60-year old man, about a 60-percent chance you already have it."

It's a sentence that's easy to understand, and is guaranteed to get a reaction such as "Wha-wha-at did he say? Did I hear that right?" from so many since so many people are not aware of this fact.

And to make it absolutely clear what you're saying, confirm to them that, in case they were thinking that it's only one-in-six men who GET PCa, explain that that is number who are DIAGNOSED with it, and the number actually getting and having it during their lifetimes is really much higher.

You know what you'll be up against from the start: a huge crowd of rabid college football fans who are chomping at the bit to get the game going, and are viewing all the pre-game activities, including your talk, as just something to get out of the way.

But if you run the above couple of facts by them during your talk, as shocking as they will be to a lot of people, and they may suppress thinking about these facts for the duration of the game, but after the game at least a number of them will think about them further and look into them further, simply because they are such dramatic facts.

But this is just a suggestion. Whatever you come up with to say to them, I know it will be effective.
Posted 8/6/2013 10:58 PM (GMT 0)
I am so glad for you Purg! Enjoy yourself at the game, we know you will present well!
Posted 8/6/2013 11:20 PM (GMT 0)
David
I wore those colors proudly in Spartanburg. Just a stone's throw from "Death Valley". As you might expect, many in my family are rabid fans. Mostly of Clemson, but a few of us are fans of USC ( of course I mean South Carolina, I must be specific now that I live in Trojan land LOL).
Go Gamecocks !
Posted 8/7/2013 12:29 AM (GMT 0)
I've been a member and following this forum for just under a year, my husband was diagnosed summer of 2012, he's 52 now. This is the first time I've posted, but wanted to share how thrilled I am for you, David, for this honor and chance of a lifetime! My friends daughter goes to Clemson, I'll be sure to let her know too! Hope your team wins, but more important, that its a grand occasion!
Posted 8/7/2013 1:27 AM (GMT 0)
I must be specific now that I live in Trojan land LOL).
Go Gamecocks !

you live in Trojan land and you root for the cocks ?  sounds right cool

ed

.
Posted 8/7/2013 1:36 AM (GMT 0)
Get the nessage out there Purg about PC. You have a chance to educate individual men and their wives as well as being a voice for our fight for resources, medical treatment, research..........etc.

You'll do well I am sure.

Posted 8/7/2013 2:26 AM (GMT 0)
Congratulations David!  Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.  I agree with a lot that's already been said.  Short and attention getting/memorable.  I like the age = % line. And agree that you should push learning more about pc for themselves.  You could also encourage the powers that be to hand out blue ribbons or pins at the entrance gates for the game, also.  Maybe with a message something like "Men's health- It's a man's job to  learn about prostate cancer"- someone else will make it snappier- but you get the idea.  The pink ribbon has become such a powerful symbol- this could become one, too.  Happy for you and your family!!!!!   yeah
Posted 8/7/2013 2:58 AM (GMT 0)
thanks one and all, it really is an exciting honor and opportunity, totally unexpected
---------------
Ed/F8 - even I got the Trojans and the gamecock part, lol
----------------------

worried - I was already thinking about acknowledging the Pink movement, in order to encourage the Blue.

david
Posted 8/7/2013 3:09 AM (GMT 0)
What an awesome honor and opportunity. You'll do great. Anything to get the message out.
Posted 8/7/2013 3:11 AM (GMT 0)
thank you. I keep thinking, why me?
Posted 8/7/2013 4:07 AM (GMT 0)
"thank you. I keep thinking, why me?"

Maybe you earned it. Yours has been a darnn tough road.
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Posted 8/7/2013 1:44 PM (GMT 0)
congrats, buddy ! i think they made an excellent choice...enjoy your moment in the limelight !
bob
Posted 8/7/2013 2:56 PM (GMT 0)

Purgatory said...
thank you. I keep thinking, why me?

Why not? You'll do a good job. Hit them with the age = % line and they'll likely remember it.

Handing out blue ribbons is a great idea. Pink gets all the airplay now, but if we can "save the ta-tas" why can't we "save the pee-pees"? tongue
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