I always take an opportunity to thank the Lord for me being here still, but also my great medical team. And guys, be proactive.
Make sure you get your blood work done, your PSA [prostate-specific antigen] checked. I couldn’t believe how efficient and the love and the care and the attention that health workers give to each and every one of us.
I had my prostate removed, I had some meds and follow-up treatment found a little bit more stuff, so we had to go in for two months of radiation treatment.
You do what you’ve gotta do. The important thing is to stay optimistic, stay positive. I love my family, my healthcare people that want the best for you.
So you can push through it. So anybody that’s struggling with that right now, keep that heavy metal faith. With all the due care and diligence and attention, you’ll survive.
My PSA levels were starting to get elevated many, many years before I finally had a checkup with my doctor. And he took the blood tests and he goes, ‘Man, these numbers are really high.
I’m gonna take you to my guy.’ I wanna say it was close to 10 years [ago] when my PSA levels were starting to get elevated. I was living in San Diego at the time.
And my doctor there, he, as well, said, ‘Rob, we need to keep an eye on this. I don’t like the look of these numbers. Can you come in and see me, and we’ll run some tests?’ So this is on the eve of a big world tour.
So what do you do? ‘Yeah, doc. I’ll just get this tour completed and I’ll come and see you.’ So, as you know, Jay, when we go on these world tours, they can take a year, two years, three years to complete, so through that whole touring process, I never got the follow-ups that I needed to get done, done.
And let me quickly say that it’s a guy thing, right? It’s a guy thing. I’m a 70-year-old metalhead. I come from a generation when men, we didn’t talk about these kinds of things.
We never really talked about our health. We always found it difficult to open up emotionally, let alone anything else. So on top of all of the things that I was dealing with on the road and having a great time, I knew this was lurking in the back of my mind.
Anyway, so we’re talking — what? — about three years back now maybe. I see my new doctor in Phoenix, and he runs the tests again and he goes, ‘I’ve gotta get you in to see my guy.’ And that’s when this incredible journey started for me to battle the prostate cancer.
I’m a gay. [Laughs] We gays, we throw it out — we throw it out. That might sound a little bit odd, but part of my personality and my sexual identity has just given me this…
I don’t hold anything back. And part of my sobriety is living your day in the most truthful and honest way that you see fit for yourself.
Sure, if you don’t wanna share some things, you don’t have to. But I looked upon this whole experience as something that I really wanted to put out.
Having said that, we did keep a lid on it for the band, for the business side of things until the appropriate moment came along for me to discuss it.
You probably noticed, Jay, in recent years that, again, these issues of health — cancer, for example — musicians talk more openly about the health challenges that they’re going through.
So I was trying to make the timing work; I was trying to make it happen that was comfortable and beneficial to everybody,” he added.
“But initially I was telling everybody — my immediate family, my immediate close circle of friends — just because for me that was therapy. That was therapy.
The health side of life is so important,” he said. “And after having gone through what I did, I’m grateful and blessed to be able to do the work [with the band].
And as a result of going through the recovery process and the stars aligning and the calendar being in the right place, I was able to go out there and do my work now probably with even more intensity, because, man, to come through the other side of that challenge was, without a doubt, a life changer.
I’ve always lived life to the max — every day of my life. It’s so important for me to get even the smallest thing out of the day, whatever it might be.
So to be in this opportunity is just an extra boost, man. You feel that even more now when you go out on stage and you’re so grateful to be able to continue doing the work that you love.