“When you hear those words that you have cancer, it is a life changer,” says TriHealth Cancer & Blood Institute patient Steve Huster, following his diagnosis of prostate cancer.
Luckily, Steve’s care team, consisting of Dr. James Maher and Dr. Michael Shehata, had his back the entire time.
“They removed the prostate, and while I was under, they checked my lymph nodes,” Steve recalled from his initial procedure. “Thank God they came back clean.”
Steve, however, wouldn’t get as lucky with the tests run on his bladder, where his doctors found additional cancer.
“They didn’t have to take my whole bladder out—they were able to reconstruct,” he said. “After that, I went through several chemo treatments with Dr. Maher and 39 radiation treatments.”
Even after ups, downs and setbacks, Steve has found it important to keep a positive outlook on his situation, no matter what.
“Your attitude is a lot to do with it,” he said in retrospect. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have some bad days where I thought ‘why me?’, but I never gave up.”
Steve, now on the other side of his fight against prostate cancer, is doing much better and cherishing his restored health.
“I want to thank everybody who was involved,” he emphasized, continuing on: “And it’s not just the doctors, it’s all the staff in the hospital, everybody is just so pleasant… keep doing what you’re doing.”