My name is Euvon B. Jones. I was born in Baltimore, Maryland. My family actually originated from Lumberton, North Carolina. We have a very major presence in our family that is a mix between the Cherokee, which actually became the Lumbee Indians and also the African Americans.
And my grandfather had about a hundred acre farm there, had 10 kids, six boys, four girls. And then when the guys got old enough to be able to get up out of that farm and not work like a Hebrew slave, they moved to Baltimore. And I was born in Baltimore, Maryland.
My early life growing up was just centered around having a good time. I can't say that I was displaced or had a hard time. We lived in a... As far as I could see, my dad did very well. And so we lived in a middle class African American neighborhood, newer home and the whole spiel. All row homes, so everything in Baltimore's row homes.
And going to school and matriculating into who I am, I just always loved music. Loved music. So, when I was in middle school, I started learning how to play music. I always had... Every year for Christmas, my dad would buy me a guitar and he didn't think I was as serious. So the guitar was always plastic. My little sister would step on the guitar and crack it so that she let me know she was in charge.
So when I started getting serious, my dad really hunkered down and bought me a real guitar. I think it cost $50. And he let me know that we may not even be able to pay the house payment because this guitar cost so much back in the '50s. And once I got my guitar, I started trying to play. And the music has been a part of my life ever since.
In middle school, I learned how to play upright bass. I got trained in classical and loved jazz, jazz, big band, the whole spiel. And once I got into high school, I was playing with the trio and we started playing for some of the political royalty of Baltimore, different events and doing “Button Up Your Overcoat” and all that kind of good stuff, "A" Train.
And that helped me make money because my dad worked real hard and he didn't have a lot of money for us. And then I matriculated into that. From that into becoming a part of a funk band in my last three years of high school. And that funk band morphed into a traveling band. And I'm not going to give the name of the band, but we started opening for Herbie Hancock, Earth, Wind & Fire, Commodores, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.
It was a good time. And, interestingly, I met my wife in another band that we moved to that she became a background singer in. And we had this wonderful, crazy, interesting relationship, hard on interesting. I never thought that she was going to be the one.
Being in high school, it was great playing in a band because I was able to supplement income while in high school. My dad didn't have a lot of money, so he couldn't give us a real decent allowance. Our allowance, I believe, back at that time was my $2.50 a day. So that wasn't good enough money for me.
So I learned how to become a caddy. I played music. And in the process of graduating, I went down to work at a steel plant. Never thought, because I'm not one, I don't know if you can see them, but I'm not one, I don't like getting my nails dirty. So not even dealing with a shop or a tech class. And I ended up becoming a sheet metal apprentice. Didn't know what sheet metal was.
And after going into that, it so drugged me in for those three months prior to having a full ride to Delaware State, which I did not take. I had a full ride musical scholarship to Delaware State. Didn't take it. Ended up going into construction industry. I became a HVAC mechanic. Never saw it coming, loved it, loved the challenge, loved building things, loved coming up with solutions.
And that matriculated into us becoming an entrepreneurial HVAC company. And we basically started in Baltimore, Maryland, moved to California for 10 years, did it out there, loved it out there. And then ended up moving back to the East Coast.
In the interim of that, we became a part of a church that introduced us to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Ain't nobody like God. But that all said, it was crazy. And in the midst of all that craziness, Janet and I met in a band.
And in that band, we dated for about three years and then finally married. Never saw that coming, either. I was never going... When you're in a band, you ain't getting married. So, the thing was is that this woman just grabbed my heart and we've been together now for more than 46, almost 50 years, really.
So, one thing led to another. I'm doing the HVAC company. We're still making a little music, just trying to find a way how to do life. And now we're at a place we have four children, eight grandkids, and it's a great place to be.
But I never had, in the midst of that, always had great healthcare, tremendous healthcare. My healthcare, because I was in an international union, was always paid for. So, I wasn't struggling trying to figure out, "Okay, how do I take care of the family? How do I have life insurance? How do we save money? How do we do those?" Those things were not our concern.
We just enjoyed living. And I know that was all by God's grace. I don't take credit for that.
But, that said, I never had time because being a businessman, I co-owned a business with my partner and then that, I wouldn't take time to go get screened health checks. I never got my annual checkups, did my blood work or all that stuff. Everything that has become germane to who I am now, I didn't do that. Didn't have time for it.
So, one thing led to another, and at the age of 59 years old, I got diagnosed with stage 4, metastatic prostate cancer.
I didn't even think about cancer very much. And lo and behold, in doing my history in my family of the six brothers, my father and his five brothers, all of them had cancer. One had brain cancer. The other two had lung cancer. Three of them had prostate cancer. My father died, not from any cancer, but he had three of them when he passed away. Lived to be 89, though, so God's good.
Cancer was laden all in my family. My sister had been impacted by cancer. Cancer's always been in my family. But as you know, and I guess I'm speaking to the guys, but also to just the public. When things don't hit you, you think that's them. This is not me. This is not going to affect me.
So, because I'm not in that group, because I'm healthy, I'm cut. I would come home, shucks. I'd go work out. I could go hang out with my guys, work a week. I would be recut. I got six-pack, killing it. Now I'm just trying to keep this one pack up.
So, the reality is that I never had time because it was all about the business. Six days a week, 10, 12 hour days, that was our lifestyle. And we had fun, but I was very focused on being that provider, doing that guy thing, making sure that you provide for the family.
So when I got diagnosed, it really knocked me out of my seat. And actually, getting diagnosed with prostate cancer, I had to come to the table and honestly admit that I didn't even know what a prostate was. I didn't care. Well, if you're healthy, you're looking good.
But the thing I realized after going through the journey, initially, my wife started studying of what things can cause it. And then you start to learn that processed sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, environment, air quality, those things that can permeate and those things that we put in our body that are not good for us, can set our bodies up to losing the immune system not being able to fight.
So you become toxic and inflamed. And becoming toxic and inflamed, you can exercise all you want, do everything you want, but sooner or later the body's going in there fighting that fight, sooner or later, that fight's going to... You're going to start losing a little bit of ground.
So, my day would start four o'clock in the morning and I would get off maybe seven at night. Four in the morning, I'd have my coffee and I'd stand at that vending machine. I'd pull that vending machine like I was going to the club, going to the... Bottom line, let me go down and the one armed bandit. And you pull that and pull out my Peter Paul Almond Joys and my Ho Hos and those little pink snowballs. And all of that stuff I was putting in my body because it gave me that sugar rush. Love that sugar rush.
In getting diagnosed, we were really faced with a reality that we went to a suburban oncologist and that suburban oncologist had more or less diagnosed me and started moving very quickly. And she was a wonderful person. There were great healthcare providers at that office, but there were way too many patients in this clinic and not enough healthcare providers.
And, basically, the only reason I knew I needed to go in was because I developed a limp. My wife had gone to an orthopedic surgeon. That limp, she told me, "Why don't you go check him out and then see what's going on?" I just thought I wasn't exercising enough.
Once again, I'm 59 years old, always been a physical specimen, I thought. So, I go to check it out. For so many months, he gave me some over the counter medication to try to mask the pain, which had helped mask the pain. And then there was one day I went swimming with a little young boy in a pool. He challenged me to a race. And the first time we went across the pool, I tore him up. And the word is tore, tore him up, tore.
Second time he beat me. So the third time, I said, "Okay, we're on vacation. I can't, that little whipper snapper out..." Because lo and behold, no matter what they tell you, black people can swim.
So, I took off and it was over. It was over. And it's almost like you're doing the American crawling. You know if you sneak and take a breath, it's going to slow you down just a bit. So I took no breaths. I just hunkered down and kicked, jumped out the other end, beat him. He didn't know what happened to him.
That Monday, I couldn't get out of bed. And that Monday was when my wife told me, "You better go in and see the orthopedic surgeon."
And from that escalation, it took some time, but in the midst of it, we finally got to the point where they diagnosed me. And when they diagnosed me with stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer, I was blown away. And I felt like my life had its great blessing of a life that God had bestowed on us was just blown up.
So, I guess I fast-forward to the reality that we needed somebody and we needed someone fast. And as I talked to my wife, she said, "Baby, the thing about this is you don't have this. We do."
And she became a student of that diagnosis to try to find out how we could change our lifestyle. So in the midst of the lifestyle, she started orchestrating even me trying to work from 59, because I'm not the disability kind of guy.
So, I wanted to at least work to 62 so I could be able to retire. And as I was going through that, we went through the metrics of taking all the rugs out of the house, change the environment, change the diet, change your lifestyle, help your body fight the thing that's trying to take your body out.
Air quality control in our home. We went into antioxidant foods, strawberries, cherries - all organic - raspberries, blueberries, pomegranates. Pomegranates are a known cancer fighter.
We have a friend who used to work for one of the pharmaceuticals. He was the demarcation guy. He was the guy that would open the door for the drug to be tested by the FDA. And when he got an article on pomegranates, he put that article in front of me and he said, "Look, Euvon, you've got to do this. This is what you need to do. I'm telling you, you got to do it." And so we started that regimen.
And it's interesting for me because it's been over 15 years now since diagnosis. And the reality is that I realized nothing but the grace of God didn't have to be this way because usually guys that are diagnosed, they may have two months, two years at the best. But now like I said, I'm more than 15 years.
As a person, you don't become cognizant of the space you're in until you are dealt that blow. That blow hits you in life. And so, since my wife and I had started with the first oncologist and I knew that that was not where I should be, one of our major clients was a very formidable hospital in the Washington DC area, which was one of my clients. And I knew a lot of the people there. And I also knew many of the staff.
So I sought out another oncologist to kind of walk me through what was going on. And way prior to Janet starting to become knowledgeable of what was going on, she was the one who ordered the biopsy.
The biopsy was the thing that brought everything home because my MRIs looked like a Yosemite Sam picture where he shot Bug's Bunny and he said, "Get the rabbit." And when he shoots the rabbit, you see buckshot all over him. That's the way my MRIs look.
So, this was new territory for me. I didn't know what I was looking at, what I was talking about. I didn't even know what we were chasing. All I knew was I had a bad pain in my hip.
And so, after she ordered the bone biopsy, because my prostate, interestingly, having prostate cancer, my prostate was so far gone. She said, "Oh, I'm not going to waste my time with that." So, in turn, they did a bone biopsy. And my father had a biopsy done for cancer. And he said, "If they ever do another one on me, son, let me go. Let me go."
So, I wasn't really into this biopsy thing. And after getting the biopsy, it confirmed that I was stage 4 prostate cancer. And I had this formidable doctor who is cataclysmic in the space, just so in tune with prostate cancer for years.
And her name was Dr. Nancy A. Dawson and finding her was a godsend. Because the reality for me was I found an oncologist, not a urologist. It's an interesting piece. And so, she in turn started me on a hormone blocker.
One of the reasons being diagnosed at stage 4, I was just so far gone that it didn't make, for me in my estimation, it didn't make sense to slice, dice, cut and burn me. So, I received no chemo, no surgery, no radiation. She put me on a hormone blocker. And that hormone blocker, what they call ADT therapy, I was on for a year and that brought my PSA way down, but then it started rising again.
And Janet and I freaked out. She said, "Neh, don't even worry. I got a lot of things up my sleeve." And she put me on, which was a clinical trial at the time, a procedure which was called immunotherapy.
And the immunotherapy is called a Provenge. And Provenge is an application of taking your blood from your body, sending that blood to a lab, having that lab morph your blood with fighting agents to boost your immune system. And on the third day, they put your blood back in you, the third day, three times over six weeks.
On the weeks I had off because my veins were too small to incorporate the needles that they used, they would clean my ports. So I did get a set of ports. I ain't never had a set of ports. Janet and I freaked out about that, too.
They would clean my ports on a Monday, Wednesday, and a Friday. So this process, evidently, in this clinical trial, monitored my health and my healthcare to rebuild and reboost my immune system. My blood being morphed with fighting agents in a lab that would help my blood come back then on the third day put back in my body to become the troops that were necessary to go and fight this war.
Because realistically, the reason I had prostate cancer was because my body, I was losing the war. I was losing the war.
So, in turn, after that, I was put on a second line of defense after the ADT, after the T, Sickle Cell T, also put on the secondary hormone blockers. And those are shot every three months. And also I take four pills a day.
And that has taken my cancer and arrested it. And so much so that in the process of while I was going through all of these metrics with Dr. Dawson, she called Janet and I on a Sunday, I think it was in 2017. Once again, I was diagnosed 2011. She called 2017 and she said, "Your cancerous bone marrow, because of the spread of the cancer," it went in my blood, my bone marrow, my lymph nodes, my hip, my back, my chest, I guess all over the place.
She said, "Your cancerous bone marrow is being replaced by new bone marrow that is replacing those cancerous tumors that have started to rescind around your body."
And it's interesting because Janet, being the student that she is, the intellectual that she is, she started coming alongside of me. And as I was working, trying to get to retirement, she started studying. As she studied, she found those things that could help in our household. And then she started with a journal. That journal ended up being morphed into a book. It's called The Trial of Stage IV Prostate Cancer by Janet Jones, and it's sold all around the world.
And looking at this journey now, it's not just about me. It's about who we can speak into their lives and help them, and also about communicating the fact that I did not get screened.
I did not understand that, especially black men being more susceptible to prostate cancer, need to not wait to 50, but need to be screened by 40 years old. The propensity and the mortality rate for black men with prostate cancer is almost a two to one difference in reference to every other demographic.
So, this is not just a man's disease, but it tends to be a disease that disproportionately affects African American men more so than any other group. And I could be wrong, but I believe that one of the reasons is that we do not go and get screened.
And number two, we don't like clinical trials. And we know why we don't like clinical trials because we do not trust even with medical, having total medical care. Like I said, we had a great insurance, but we don't like, we don't trust doctors.
And it's an honest conversation. And everyone knows about the Tuskegee journey in reference to how they did that study and how that affected those men, but we can't stay there. We can't put up our tent and camp at, "Well, they did me wrong, man. And they..."
No, no. We got to keep moving on because if we don't, we're going to affect those things that mean the most to us. And those things that mean, are very meaningful to us is me being here more than 15 years later after being diagnosed to be able to be here with my children, our grandchildren.
So many of our grandkids weren't even born prior to me getting diagnosed. Soccer games, basketball games, concerts, my goodness, birthday parties, weddings. Just make your own list. It's amazing. This did not have to happen for me. The journey, I counted it all joy.
The education portion is essential. If you do not become a student of your diagnosis, you're saying that I trust everybody else to tell me what I need to do that's going to be good for my body.
Well, the problem is I didn't even trust myself to tell me what I needed to do that was good for my body. The thing about for us men is that we have to admit that we, number one, now I might not be talking to everybody, but we are very opinionated. We know what we want to do. Once we make our minds up, that's where we're focused. And a lot of that can permeate over to arrogance. And arrogance can get in the way of knowledge and wisdom.
"Because I know what I need. Tell me right here. No..." And that whole thing is, you don't think you're going to find yourself there, but you're living there because it's that thing that motivates you to do your profession well.
So, that said, the same engine that pushes you to be excellent in those things you do, you have to humble yourself when you have to go to a league or you have to go to a venue in your life that you don't know anything about. Then you got to humble yourself. You got to receive the information. Education is totally prominent. You can never get enough.
There's a whole bunch of junk out there, but you need to educate yourself. And when you find out things that work, you need to tell someone else. And that ends up driving you to not only a student, but a doer of the word, not just a hearer, to make a difference in your lifestyle.
And so, for men, we need to drop our pride, realize that prostate cancer is... We have been in venues that we're with 90-year-old guys and centurions. Janet's father was a documented Tuskegee Airmen. My uncle was one, so we go to conventions and just about everybody in there has prostate cancer. So it's like, it's not if you get it, it's when you get it.
So, the regimen now after the immunotherapy for me has been the second line of defense medications that are helping my forces stay up and keeping my well-planted military bases set up in the places that they have conquered and maintain the peace. Maintain the peace.
Those medications are Xtandi, which is called enzalutamide, and also a Lupron shot. And both of these are hormone blockers that will speak to the testosterone that builds up in your body because testosterone feeds prostate cancer.
And in turn, going through the clinical trial and then coming through that second line of defense has proved to be very effective. And like I said, at the end of the day, if God don't step in, it's just another story.
My original PSA was diagnosed at 398. And today they tell me that I'm undetectable with a PSA of 0.0.
So, according to those numbers and their estimation from all the specialists in the room, they say, I can't say cancer free because I know too much about the body now and cancer's always trying to get in there. But I got a lot of warriors inside of me fighting.
Chronologically speaking, I was put on a cancer blocker, which was the first line of defense medication was called a Casodex. And a Casodex is a blocker that stops the portion of your body from your prostate that feeds the cancer.
One of the reasons that I was put on this hormone therapy was because I was not a candidate for surgery, chemo, or radiation, being the fact that cancer was spread all over me. I was dotted all over it. I mean, they would have to slice and dice me. I would have been more or less filleted like a piece of fish to get to what was going on.
And once that brought my PSA way down, but then it started to grow, that's when Dr. Dawson told me that I needed... She had a lot of things up her sleeve and she said, "Don't worry. We're going to put you on this immunotherapy," which I later found out was a clinical trial because they would always call me and kind of monitor, "How you doing now? What's going on?" And they took care of me with kid gloves.
It was amazing. And it's interesting. One piece in the immunotherapy, when we first went to the collection center at Red Cross, they tried to get the needles in me and my veins were too small.
So, after the young lady, the beautiful, wonderful... My wife almost lost it that day. But after they tried 15 times, I said, "Sweetheart," and she was the lady, the phlebotomist, she was crying. I said, "Look, baby, we're going to go ahead. We're going to go get ourselves some lunch. Thank you." Because number one, the thing I hate, one thing I hate, I even probably dislike it more than prostate cancer, are needles.
So every three months when I have to go in and get my oil changed, they pull out the blood markers and everything they need to do to check. I hate that needle. And everyone laughs and I tell them, "Look, get the smallest needle, get... Please."
So, the reality is that when we left that first collection center, which was Red Cross, my doctor called me 15, 20 minutes later, "We have you set up for an appointment two days. Come to the hospital and we're going to have a set of ports put in."
And that guided me through the process. So for those six weeks, I had these two things sticking out and I covered it up, but they were able to pull the blood from me and then put the blood back in me.
The reality for me was that there was never a point that they did not... I almost thought they were over my shoulder because everything I did, they were able to follow.
The side effects of the Casodex or the hormone therapy was not tremendous for me. Many times I can get hot flashes, which just makes my... My wife is just so positively in a great place when that happens because she looks at me and she says, "See?"
But other than that, I didn't have a tremendous amount of side effects from the ADT or the hormone blockers. And in reference to receiving the Provenge when you're in the chair, collection center, and also when they put it back in you, you can have night hot, basically cold sweats.
You can be upset on your stomach, you can get inundated and they can need to cover you with a blanket, but that's only while you're in the chair receiving that process. After that, no side effects at all.
So, for me, I haven't experienced tremendous side effects. And by the grace of God, you deal with the things that happen with your libido, but the bottom line is that there's tools.
So, bottom line, you can still live a full life. So I'm quite blessed.