Alonzo Mourning Opens Up About Cancer, Kidney Disease & Heart Health

NBA legend and Miami Heat icon Alonzo Mourning joins Baptist Health primary care physician Dr. Daniel Ramon for a powerful conversation about men’s health, preventive screenings and why feeling fine does not always mean being healthy.

During this special Men’s Health Month discussion, Mourning opens up about his kidney transplant, prostate cancer diagnosis and heart procedures — including the routine checkup that led doctors to discover a serious heart rhythm issue even though he felt completely fine.

Together, Mourning and Dr. Ramon encourage men to take charge of their health, schedule regular checkups, ask questions, know their family history and stop waiting until something hurts before seeing a doctor.

Because as Mourning says: “If you don’t go, you don’t know.”

For more health and wellness resources, visit Baptist Health South Florida’s Resource Blog: https://baptisthealth.net/news

Guests:

Alonzo Mourning
Miami HEAT Alumni, NBA Hall of Famer
Prostate Cancer Survivor

Daniel Ramon, M.D.
Family Medicine Physician
Baptist Health Primary Care

If you found this episode helpful, you may also enjoy:

The Screening That Changed Everything for Alonzo Mourning

Championing Men's Health: A Conversation with Alonzo Mourning

The Conversation Men Need to Have and Why It Starts Now

Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:00

What I wish more men would understand about screenings and early detections, that if you don't go, you don't know. If you don't go, you don't know. You can't leave it to chance. Okay? Early detections save lives. It saved my life.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Welcome to Baptist Health Talk, a podcast on all things healthcare, powered by Baptist Health South Florida, your trusted source for healthcare prevention and wellness.

SPEAKER_07 0:33

How y'all doing? Yeah, yeah, good. Well, June is, well, first of all, thank you all for being here. Uh, y'all look amazing. You know, we're gonna have some fun today. And I want to thank Baptist Health and the Miami Heat for creating this amazing atmosphere, you know, and uh June is men's health month. And how we celebrate men's health month is we gather. We gather, we come together, and we have have some dialogue around men's health so we can improve best practices uh and best approaches to to our health. Now, uh I personally uh and some of you all might know of some of them, but uh I've had some some devastating turbulent uh health adversities, medical adversities. And um I kind of look back on those those obstacles that I was going through, those those medical obstacles I was going through. And on my way over here, you know, I was just thinking about those moments of why why am I going through this right now? Why am I going through this? There's some times in my life where you know things were going extremely well, you know, and and some of them where I was asymptomatic, I was feeling extremely great, and and I was going through some very rough medical times, you know. But now I look back on them and I'm sitting here talking to you today because of God's grace, and yes, and I'm saying to myself the reason why is because I'm supposed to be here to be a messenger for you all.

SPEAKER_06 2:41

That's why I went through those things.

SPEAKER_07 2:44

So um a coach once told me adversity introduces a man to himself. And God knows I've had some medical adversities that had that really introduced me to a different way of my approach to my life as it as it pertains to my health. And um, today I hope that the conversation that we have today and the time that you spend here uh helps you take a different approach uh to your health. So um, so when when men hear, when we have these little cards, we gotta stick to the script, so bear with us with this thing right here. So we're gonna have, like I said, me and Doc were gonna have this conversation, you know, and then we're gonna open up the floor for questions, you know. So when men hear stories like mine, you know, and those stories are the kidney transplant I had 23 years ago, or you know, the pacemaker or the heart conditions that I had to deal with just last year, or the prostate cancer that I had to go through, the prostate cancer that I had to go through a couple of years ago. When men hear stories like mine, uh some may think um that happened to him.

SPEAKER_06 4:11

I feel fine. From your perspective, Doc, how dangerous is that mindset?

SPEAKER_03 4:19

So um before we get started, I just want to introduce myself and then I'll answer uh Zoe's question. Um I'm Dr. Ramon. I'm a Baptist, uh, I'm a primary care physician with Baptist Health. Um and one of the things as a primary care, I see myself as the hub uh to coordinate care among specialists. I also see myself um as the primary resource for patients uh when they need to track their health long term. Now I think that's a great question. Um and I think based on Zo's uh history with his kidney disease, um, his prostate cancer diagnosis, he didn't feel anything. He was getting screening, he got checked, and they found these conditions without him feeling anything. I think uh one of the things a lot of men think is, well, I feel fine. I feel fine, so I must be fine. But I think one of the things I want to get across, you know, during this talk is that feeling healthy is not the same thing as being healthy. And that's why I always counsel my patients to get their checkups, to get their screenings, uh, because sometimes you may have things you don't even feel. Now, uh, so I have a question for you. I know you've been through serious health battles, kidney disease, surgery, prostate cancer. Was there one moment when you realize this is bigger than basketball?

SPEAKER_07 5:40

Uh indeed, Doc. You know, when when um when I think about uh those health obstacles I've had to go through, you know, I I started realizing that simply because, you know, as a professional athlete, you I you know, I I don't know if there are any professional athletes in here, but you get so caught up in this level of invincibility. You know, I can I felt like I could leap to all buildings in a single bound. And I tell you what, you know, at 610, 260, 6% body fat, you know, I felt like a superhero. I I really did. You know, there were times where I felt like, you know, I could, you know, I was gonna live forever. You know, that was my mentality, you know. And at some point I could leap tall buildings at a single bow, you know, I could, you know, but um when I was faced with kidney disease in the prime of my career, when I came back from the Olympics in 2000, uh and I started feeling lethargic. Started seeing some slight swelling in my ankles and everything. And this was coming off the gold medal game, and I was didn't realize I had a kidney condition going on until I got back and I was ready to start training camp. And routine physical showed I had some abnormalities in my body chemistries, you know. So the the Mount Heat team doctors basically said, Look, you gotta go to a nephrologist. I didn't even know what a nephrologist was at the age of 30. I didn't know what that was. I didn't know it was a kidney doctor. So I went, you know, and then they told me I had this rare kidney disorder called focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. When they told me immediately, you know, my first thought is like, wow, you know, I'm about to die. You throw this big word at me I can't pronounce that I have, I felt like I was about, you know, like this is it. I'm about to die, you know. But I found a doctor that could that could treat it and slow the progression of it down, you know, and then when I started educating myself on what was going on, it gave me a little bit more confidence on my approach to it. And ultimately I ended up having a kidney transplant three years later, you know, but and here I am, you know, you know, living with that transplant, you know, has been an adjustment. It has been. It's been an adjustment. You know, uh, I'm very transparent with my health. You know, I have nothing to hide, you know. Um so I'm looking forward to a lot of the questions that you all ask. But, you know, I take almost 30 pills a day between between morning and evening and between prescription drugs and and supplements. I take about 30 pills a day just to just to just to look like I look, just to function, you know. And I've been doing it for now for uh for quite some time, well over 20 some odd years. And I'm grateful for the opportunity, you know, and the education that I've developed through this whole process to help get me to this particular point. And yes, it's an inconvenience. Every morning I have to take these pills, and every evening I have to take these pills, but it beasts the alternative. It does.

SPEAKER_06 9:07

It beasts alternative. Uh I feel fine it's not a health plan.

SPEAKER_07 9:17

Um a lot of men think uh if nothing hurts, I uh I'm good. You know, what health problems can can be building quietly before a man feels anything. Like what and I and I can chime in on this as well.

SPEAKER_03 9:35

So there's a lot of conditions that we see in our clinic on on a daily basis that men might not feel for a while. Um one of common things high blood pressure, high cholesterol, uh diabetes, sleep apnea. Uh men might not feel it. They could be there for years or even decades. And that's why I always tell my patients, um, or any prospective patients, that they should get checked. You might have symptoms you don't even know you have. Um, and that's why it's important to get your screenings, uh, get stuff checked up because the body is really good at compensating. Uh, the body is really good at uh trying to control for any of these things that you don't feel, and over time they can accumulate.

SPEAKER_07 10:17

U another one I'm gonna add to his list is colon cancer. You can have no symptoms at all to minimal symptoms, and you could have colon cancer. Uh the the other one is prostate cancer. I was totally asymptomatic, totally. I felt amazing. And, you know, my urologist told me that's another doctor I didn't even know what what that was. I didn't know what a urologist was when I found out. In in a conversation, in a gathering of men, I was at an event. Literally, literally five, five years ago, I was at an event. And I was in a just we were just a group of men, and we were just chopping it up and talking. And one of the guys said, Yo, man, I got this incredible urologist. I was like, the hell is a urologist? So I pulled out my phone and I Googled it. And I said, Man, I've never seen a urologist.

SPEAKER_06 11:21

Never.

SPEAKER_07 11:22

You know, and I'm in my 50s. I was 51 years old, never seen a urologist. And I said, yo, let me get that, let me get his number, let me get his information. So I got his information, I started going to see him. I was fine in the beginning, but three years later, after going seeing him every year, because he's supposed to see him at least once a year, especially in your 50s, my PSA started going up. And my PSA started elevating, and then he identified the fact that I had uh a mask in an MRI. He asked me to get an MRI. He saw a mass on my prostate, and the rest was history. But just through the conversation I was having with men, and it's so taboo with men, well, we don't want to talk about our health. We're embarrassed and you know, we feel ashamed or anything like that, you know. But just through that conversation, that conversation, me being a part of that conversation saved my life. Because the pro the cancer that was growing inside me was stage three, it was on the cusp of metastasizing, and it could have spread through my body, and it and I probably wouldn't be here to talking to you right now.

SPEAKER_06 12:45

So catching it early was key.

SPEAKER_07 12:49

But more of a bigger key was being a part of that conversation and talking about men's health issues with a group of men was basically saved my life.

SPEAKER_06 13:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:05

So one of the things I want to mention, you know, a lot of men um delay care. And I think it's important that you don't just brush it off. Um, you know, a lot of men delay care for a lot of different reasons. You know, obviously we're all busy. We all have jobs, we have careers, uh, we have families. Um, there's a lot of other things that play into it. I think men, you know, might be a little bit of afraid of going to the doctor, fear of, you know, um not knowing what they're gonna say, fear of loss of control, you know, you're giving your health information to someone else, um, you know, embarrassment. Some of the stuff we have to talk about can be a little bit sensitive. And I think all these things can play a role. But I like to tell my my patients that one of the most important things you could do by going to the doctor is also being there for your family, you know, having a good quality of life. Uh, so you could be there for your significant others, your children, your parents, uh, because having that good quality of life is also something you could do, um, so you could be there for them.

SPEAKER_07 14:05

Well, you know, I want to add to that, Doc, you know, and I think you make a valid point. To all the men in here, raise your hand if you have children.

SPEAKER_06 14:16

Okay. Raise your hand if you have a family. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 14:22

All right, so all of you all in here have people that rely on your existence.

SPEAKER_06 14:28

They rely on you being in being here. Your existence. Okay? They can't take care of you. You gotta take care of yourself. You gotta drive the car, you gotta hold the steering wheel, you gotta take charge of your health.

SPEAKER_07 14:47

Okay? You gotta go to the doctor once a year, no matter how uncomfortable it is. Okay? It's the three doctors, especially a middle-aged man. It's the three doctors that we should see every year.

SPEAKER_06 14:58

Cardiologists, urologists, and primary care physician. I think that covers it.

SPEAKER_07 15:10

Yep, that covers it all, don't you think, Doug?

SPEAKER_03 15:12

No, I think that's uh great advice, you know, trying to get checked up, having your primary care so they can coordinate your care, and having any specialists that's you know required based on, you know, your chronic conditions, your age, and your risk factors. Now, uh Zoe, they want to ask you, what does taking care of your health look like for you now? Not as a formal athlete, but as a man who wants to live well?

SPEAKER_07 15:37

Uh a lot of things. You know, yesterday I walked six miles. You know, I don't run anymore. I mean, sometimes I trot, a little trot, you know, but at 50, you know, I don't run like I used to. I don't want to pull a hamstring or pop an Achilles, you know what I'm saying? I've had my fair share of injuries, orthopedic injuries, you know, but moving is extremely. Being sedentary ain't good. When you stop moving, you start dying. Okay? So making a concerted effort to move every day. Get up, move, don't sit on the couch for long periods of time. Get up and move is extremely important. Stretching is another thing. I stretch every day. As you get older, we shrink. We tend to shrink. You know, our posture changes, everything. You know, uh stretching helps and it promotes circulation, whatever. If you want to do yoga with your wife, ain't nothing wrong with that either. You know, uh, I know in the beginning, I thought it was just some female type stuff that, but then I found the benefits of it, you know. So I started doing yoga. So I do yoga every now and then with my wife, and we enjoy it. You know, we enjoy it. You know, should we just do it right there on an iPad? We do a little class, a little 30-minute yoga class to get the body warm and get moving. Eating right, making sure you drink enough water per day, mushing yourself out, you know, and also getting with a doctor and seeing as you get older, men become deficient in vitamin D. Our bodies don't produce vitamin C. So I take vitamin C every day, all right? A certain amount of vitamin C every day. Correct me if I'm wrong, Doc. You know, vitamin, a lot of men are vitamin D deficient, you know, uh, because they're not outside in the sun, because you get vitamin D from the sun, you know, so people become a little deficient. So I take a supplement every month, you know, for vitamin D, you know, so making sure that your body gets all the nutrients that it needs. And you can go to a nutritionalist, you can go to a primary care physician, they can do blood work and see where you're deficient in those categories. But exercising and eating right, you know, you got, look, I don't have to tell you all that drinking sodas every day is unhealthy. I don't have to tell you that. You know, so best practices, doing everything in moderation, you know, taking better care of your body, knowing basically the old saying goes, you are what you eat. You know, if you eat junk all the time, you're gonna feel like junk. That's how you're gonna feel. But if you made a concerted effort to try to eat healthy, eat a lot of fiber, have a fiber-rich diet, you know, uh cutting down on the sugar and you know, and eating a lot of nice, nice lean proteins, yeah. You know, you uh you'll feel better when you wake up in the morning. You won't feel as sluggish, you'll feel a little bit more energized, all those things. Am I right, Doc?

SPEAKER_03 19:03

You know, building on what Zoe said, you know, absolutely lifestyle plays a big role in our health. Yeah. And uh, you know, some men think, well, I'm in my 20s, I'm in my 30s, I'm my forties. I feel good. You know, I'll eat a hamburger, I'll, you know, not exercise as much, I'll, you know, drink a little bit more, I'll smoke. But I think a lot of patients will realize you don't feel it today, you don't feel it tomorrow. These things build on each other. Um, you know, I like to compare it to like a retirement account. You put a little money a little bit over time, and over time it builds on itself, it compounds. Health also compounds. You might not feel it for a while, but over time it builds up. And that's why you think about it long term. Every little bit of exercise you do every day, every healthy meal that you eat, drinking alcohol in moderation, sleeping right, um, it builds up over time. And over time you'll see it not now, but you'll see it decades decades from now.

SPEAKER_07 19:56

I also want to add, you know, we take men, we take better care of our cars than we do our bodies. We do. You know, I mean, we keep our car nice and clean, we put the best gasoline in it. You know, what if we just change that? What if we just put regular unleaded in our cars, not the premium? And these these, you know, these vehicles, these, these high performance vehicles that you have, and you put regular unleaded in there. Okay. You know, what if you just didn't keep it clean and didn't when the check engine light came on, you didn't take it in.

SPEAKER_06 20:34

Think about that. It that your car, it wouldn't last long.

SPEAKER_07 20:40

Eventually it's gonna break down on you. It's no different than your body. When that check engine light comes on, when you start feeling something, and for years and years as a kid, we've been told suck it up, you'll be alright.

SPEAKER_06 20:57

Be a man. You're gonna be okay. Boy, stop crying. You know, no, no, when you start feeling something that ain't right, go to the doctor.

SPEAKER_07 21:10

It could be something a lot bigger than what you think it is. Trust me on this, because there were times when I just told you I was asymptomatic and I didn't feel anything, you know, and I had a lot of crazy stuff going on in my body and didn't even realize it.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

I love the car analogy. You know, I think one of the things, you know, if you don't change your your oil, you might not feel it for a while. But over time, that engine's gonna start making noises, and by the time you realize it, uh stuff's been accumulating for a while. And it's the same thing with the with the human body.

SPEAKER_07 21:45

So, Doc, uh if if if every man in this room committed to one thing in the next thirty days, what should it be?

SPEAKER_03 21:53

So I think that's a great question. You know, besides being healthy, which we mentioned, you know, eating right, uh getting Physical activity, uh sleeping a good amount of sleep, uh, drinking alcohol in moderation, trying not to smoke. Um, one of the biggest things I recommend is schedule an appointment. Um, you know, you want to get your screenings done, you want to get checked up, you want to get your labs, you want to make sure that your body, everything's working right. So if there's one thing that I recommend to every man in this room is just schedule appointment, walk through the door. You know, at the end of the day, um we need to get checked up. We need to get checked up, we need to make sure that everything looks fine. So I would just recommend if you haven't done it so, do it now.

SPEAKER_06 22:38

Doc, I got another question for you.

SPEAKER_07 22:40

You know, um, you know, a lot of men hear prostate screening and they hear kidney health, and you know, and they they hear visits to the doctor, and they immediately tune it out. Okay. So can you break down what men actually need to know without the fear of embarrassment, uh, without the fear of doubt.

SPEAKER_06 23:08

Um what do they need to know?

SPEAKER_03 23:11

You know, a lot of men, you know, think, oh man, uh, you know, checking for kidney disease, checking for prostate cancer, and and they freak out. You know, I think one of the things I tell men is trying to go in. There's different ways that we do screening, there's different ways that we do testing. The first step is make the appointment. You know, we're gonna go over your age, your risk factors, your chronic conditions, and then basically that we'll make a determination of what testing you need. But try not to go in with any, you know, preconceived notions of what this might be, because there's different ways that we do things. So I would have a discussion with your doctor to see what exactly you need to get done.

SPEAKER_07 23:46

Yeah, well, I'm gonna tell you this, you know, the average, and correct me if I'm wrong, doc, the average uh time that you'll spend in a primary care physician's office is about 15 to 20 minutes, right? That's the that's the average doctor visit. So there's something called white coat syndrome. Raise your hand if you heard of white coat syndrome. Okay, so white coat syndrome is that a lot of people, when they walk into that doctor's office, immediately they start getting nervous. Okay. Uh their blood pressure might go up naturally, and you don't even know it. You know, uh you um your body just your body chemistries just start changing being in that room because of fear of what you might find out or what the doctors might tell you or what have you.

SPEAKER_06 24:43

What I recommend to you all, okay, and I've done this before. Okay. First of all, um it's hard to find really, really good doctors because once they see you, they got another patient waiting. All right. So if you're not engaged in the conversation with the doctor, that doctor's visit is gonna go fast. It really is. I recommend that you write questions down, okay? Have them with you so when you get there, you know how to talk to the doctor.

SPEAKER_07 25:28

All right? Don't just say, okay, just because you're trying to get out of there, everything's fine, doc. I'm good. Everything good, you know, I feel great. No. Have if if there's something that has been going on that you need to ask, no, no matter how embarrassing the question is, you need to ask that question. You need to take advantage of that moment right then. You know, so I mean, there this when I was with the urologist, there were some embarrassing questions, and there's some embarrassing answers I had to give him, but he helped me through. He helped, he even made me comfortable, you know, which was extreme. That's the sign of a really good doctor, you know, making your patients comfortable, you know. And and a lot of times you might not find the right the right doctor the first time. You might have to go and seek out another opinion. They're all medical practitioners, okay? That means they practice medicine, they're not perfect at it.

SPEAKER_06 26:31

So he is going to give you his own hypothesis based on his education. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 26:42

Another doctor might have a different education, is might give you a different hypothesis. So it's it's okay to get a second and third opinion, and then you come to a conclusion on what you want to do with your health. A lot of times, and I'm gonna tell you this, I had experiences because I went to one nephrologist, and when I was diagnosed with kidney disease, this nephrologist told me, he's like, Man, you're gonna be on dialysis within a year, and you're gonna need a transplant within a year, and you know, I asked him was it gonna live, you know, and he paused and skipped out of me. I saw the next nephrologist, and he told me, he said, you know what? We can treat this, we can slow this down. I was able to go back and play again with kidney disease. All right. I was never on dialysis, and then I didn't need the transplant. The first doctor told me I done needed it in a year. I didn't need to transplant until three years later. I went to the second doctor, and the doctor that doctor gave me a different opinion and a different approach to what I was dealing with. So it's okay to get a second and third opinion. It's okay.

SPEAKER_03 28:00

Building on that, Zoe, you know, I think everybody needs to know, too, that doctors have different styles. They offer different ways they go about stuff. And one of the best things, or one of the things that you could try to do is just make sure that you get a primary care that you feel comfortable with. They're all different, they're people. So just keep looking until you find a doctor that you feel comfortable with that you trust. Because at the end of the day, the patient-physician relationship isn't a monologue, it's a dialogue. And that dialogue's based on trust. So that's what I would counsel all of you to do after today.

SPEAKER_06 28:34

Um, you know, it is Doc, there's some questions up here that you haven't asked me.

SPEAKER_07 28:39

All right. And but I I I'd like to explore some of these questions.

SPEAKER_06 28:43

Let's do it. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 28:46

Um that you haven't asked me is if you've been open about surviving prostate cancer and about kidney journey, what do you wish more men understood about screenings and early detections? Okay. So, you know, what I wish more men would understand about screenings and early detections, that if you don't go, you don't know. If you don't go, you don't know. You can't leave it to chance.

SPEAKER_06 29:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 29:23

Early detections saved lives.

SPEAKER_06 29:26

It saved my life. Going to the doctor, saved my life. Going to that urologist, saved my life.

SPEAKER_07 29:41

Addressing my kidney issues, saved my life. I was in I was in Central Park with with some friends of mine less than a year ago.

SPEAKER_06 29:51

All right. August of last year. I'm in Central Park.

SPEAKER_07 29:59

We're running, jogging, enjoying a beautiful day in New York. Okay. We had dinner that night. We drank a bottle of wine together. Me and my boys, you know, we had a great dinner. The next day, Monday, I was on my way back to Miami, about to leave. Friday and Saturday, I was up in New York at the hospital where they did my transplant.

SPEAKER_06 30:26

I go there every year, and I do a full physical. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 30:32

And I did my physical on that Friday and Saturday, and then Sunday, I drew my Sunday, and then I was on my way back to Miami. As I'm on my way to the airport on Monday, I get a call from my doctor. He said, Hey man. Uh he said, have you gotten on the plane yet? I said, No. I said, What's going on, Doc? He said, Uh, you got to come back to the hospital. I was like, Well, what's going on? He said, We know there's something going on in your EKG. You know, and I said, My heart? He said, Yeah, your heart. He said, It's it's just the rhythm doesn't look good. And I said, Well, I feel fine. You know, I'm good. You know. He said, No, we need you to come in like right now.

SPEAKER_06 31:23

So literally I had to miss my fight. I went back to the hospital, okay? They brought a team of cardiologists in and they told me, they said, Look, your heart rate is beating in the 30s. I didn't even know it.

SPEAKER_07 31:40

They said it's not pumping enough blood to the rest of your organs. They said, we're gonna have to do something, one of three things. We're gonna have to shock you, we're gonna have to do an ablasion, or we're gonna have to put a pacemaker in. So I'm looking at them, I'm like, hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up. Yesterday I just got finished running in Central Park. And you telling me right now I'm about to have heart surgery right now.

SPEAKER_06 32:07

That's how it all started. And a couple of hours later, they were prepping me to put a pacemaker in to speed my heart up.

SPEAKER_07 32:19

I had heart surgery where they put a pacemaker in. And now my heart beats no lower than 60 beats per minute. Beats no lower than that right now. I feel fine. I feel good. The only thing is, when I go to the airport, I can't go through the metal detective machine. I gotta go through the other, I gotta get padded down. But but how they found out, and I was feeling great. I was about to get back on that plane because I could have risked a blood clot. Anything could have happened. I didn't realize what was going on in my body, but how I found out is because I went and got a checkup. I would have been running around here not realizing that I had this heart condition.

SPEAKER_06 33:06

And then shortly after that, I got aphib. All right. A fiber was your heart was just skipping a beat.

SPEAKER_07 33:18

And they had to go in another, this was three months after that that that uh pacemaker surgery, they had to go in and do an ablation. So uh, you know, I I mean I'm here to tell you that we can't leave it to chance, gentlemen. We can't, you know, we have to take charge of our health, you know. We have to uh be responsible and be proactive uh by by getting checkups.

SPEAKER_06 33:51

If you don't do it for yourself, do it for your families.

SPEAKER_03 33:55

And I think that's a great summary, uh, you know, just making sure that you are proactive with your health. Even if you feel fine, you should get checked up at least once a year. Make sure you get your screening and your test team done. Now, um I think we wanted to open the floor to some questions.

SPEAKER_08 34:11

Sir, you would be the first, but I love the first the first volunteer. Let's go.

SPEAKER_06 34:18

Hey, what's up, guys? Um, I want to thank you guys for putting on this event. Um how do you find motivation to tell people you love to get checked out? Because I lost my father because he didn't want to get checked out. First of all, I'm I'm sorry for your loss. I truly am. Uh statistically speaking, sixty percent of men, only sixty percent of the men go to at least one doctor a year.

SPEAKER_07 35:05

Only sixty percent. That's forty percent of the rest of the men's population that don't go until something is uncomfortable or something hurts.

SPEAKER_06 35:18

Um the more we gather, the more we're gonna change those statistics. Okay? It we have to talk about it, you know.

SPEAKER_07 35:32

Um and you have to be stern, you gotta grab somebody by the collar and tell them you love them uh and be a little aggressive about it, you know. But if you see somebody not taking care of themselves and you love them, then you know, you have to take an aggressive approach to making sure they do what they need to do to take care of themselves, you know. I mean, grown men, I mean, you it's it's hard to force men to do stuff that they don't want to do. I know I get a little stubborn in myself. I do. You know, but uh I know the importance of going to the doctor, you know, and I love that men are here with their wives.

SPEAKER_06 36:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 36:22

And, you know, sometimes it takes her to to put a foot in your ass, you know, in order for you all to do what you gotta do, you know. So I'm glad to see that the the women are here uh because women are more um mindful of these things than men are.

SPEAKER_03 36:48

Yeah. You'll be surprised uh how many men I see in the clinic coming in because their wives told them to. Yeah. But uh I uh it's hard to motivate, you know, men to motivate patients. I think you know, you it's a conversation, a conversation that has to be had, you know, with your loved ones to tell them you're not only doing this for you, you're doing this for your family, your kids, your significant others. Yeah. Um, so you can be there for them. And it's not just about living longer, it's about living a good quality of life. Um, and I think that's one thing that you know we try to get across through these conversations. Yeah. One conversation at a time.

SPEAKER_07 37:26

You know, I had a I have a friend of mine, uh, and he's a really close friend of mine. I've been knowing him for over 30 years now. And uh he had a heart condition as well, and he went in, he had a uh defibrillator put in. Okay. Mine was a pacemaker, his was a defibrillator. Same similar machinery, but you know, his was because his heart was beating too fast. So he told me that he went to the doctor the other day, and the nurse told him that his blood pressure was high. He said, Man, what's so crazy was he said I felt completely fine.

SPEAKER_06 38:11

He said my blood pressure was um um 200 over 100.

SPEAKER_07 38:22

Yeah. And he said he felt completely fine, other than some light headaches or what have you, he felt completely fine. I said, bruh, I mean, Jesus Christ, man. Now they have him on blood pressure medicine and he's stabilized and everything. But I mean, I cursed him out. I was like, dude, man, you can't be playing. I was like, when's the last time you been to that? He said it was a couple of years since I've been. Um, but yeah, you gotta stay on top of it, you know. And it was out of love that I spoke to him the way I spoke to him. You know, but sometimes you gotta be a little candid with people. You do, you know. Um, and just to really show them that you care and you love them and to get them to move to do stuff that they might be uncomfortable with doing.

SPEAKER_09 39:10

Thanks again for your question, sir. We have our next guest.

SPEAKER_02 39:15

Name is Azwan. Uh, pleasure to meet you all. And my question is: as a person who watched his father go through a kidney transplant and my grandfather uh pass away because of a kidney uh issue, what role would you say, or can you kind of speak to the family dynamic of it, the breaking of the cycle, so to speak? I I find myself being a runner now, making sure I'm staying on top of it as much as I can uh because of gentlemen like himself. But can you speak to just being able to break the cycle and see, hey, grandfather had it, father had it, hey, I can't let it be me.

SPEAKER_07 39:48

So well, it it it it's it sounds like first of all, you have a family history. Yeah, that's that's so from a genetic standpoint, it's in your genes. So the only way to break the cycle is early detection. So if you do, if you do have something, or you do have the potential of something happening, catching it early is probably the best possible approach. So I think that you're doing the right thing from that perspective. And I think you need to talk about it with the rest of the men in your family, uh, because you know, a lot of people don't know their family history. They don't. So knowing your family history would like prime example, you know, my grandfather had prostate cancer and my dad had prostate cancer. So, you know, again, I had that invincible mentality. I didn't think I was gonna get it because you know I was fine. And I ended up getting it, you know. So, you know, now I I tell my sons, like, hey, when y'all turn 45, you know, God willing that I'm around, when y'all turn 45, I need y'all to start getting tested for prostate cancer. You know, because when I asked my nephrologist, he told me that this probably started in your late 40s. You know, so yeah, you're doing the right thing. God bless you, man.

SPEAKER_03 41:13

Yeah, just to build up on that too. Um, you know, obviously if it runs in the family, you know, but there might be a genetic component. Yeah. But I think um another thing too is uh the behavioral cycle. You know, men are taught to push through, not to look weak, uh, not to complain. Um, but I think looking strong is also getting checked up. Getting checked up, making sure that you have a good quality of life. And I think that's one of the things that you could do to break the cycle in your family history.

SPEAKER_06 41:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_09 41:45

Thank you for your question. It's a great question.

SPEAKER_10 41:49

Hello, good morning or good afternoon. Good morning. Good morning. My name is Salvador. I just recently, at 38 years old, got um health care, and I'm in the process of trying to find a primary doctor so I can be able to start getting regular checkups because for the longest I haven't got any. But, you know, I attended last year the health summit, and that actually between that and my significant other putting her foot in my ass basically motivated me to go get a health coverage plan. How would I go about as far as finding a primary doctor?

SPEAKER_03 42:30

So uh I'll I'll uh take this on. I think uh there's you know a lot of resources nowadays. You know, obviously, you know, you can go online, you can go on Google, you know, you can find primary cares. Baptist has a ton of primary cares, obviously. Um, you know, we have a ton of clinics. I think we have like 15, 16 total throughout Miami Date and Broward County. Um, so obviously, if you want to find a primary care within the system, it's really simple. You can call Baptist, you can say, hey, you know, I'm new to the system, I want to find a primary care, I want to get started, I want to you know tackle all my health and make sure I'm healthy. Give them a call, they'll schedule with a primary care. If you want to be seen soon, they'll schedule soon. If you have a specific doctor that you want to see, you can do that. And obviously, you know, online we have reviews, we have videos, we have photos. Read into our reviews, see what other people say, look at the style. Does this person match what I like? Do they match my style? Uh, because I think one of the biggest things is you want to trust your doctor, and everybody's different, and that's okay. So you need to find somebody that matches your style, and that's something you can do looking online, and eventually you will find one.

SPEAKER_10 43:40

That's actually the issue. Like, I just want to be able to find someone that I can feel comfortable talking to. Not, I mean, no offense, you know, if you got a you know, your medical experience, you know, that's good. But I want to be able to actually have a conversation like that, you know, and and know that the doctor's gonna be real with me, but I can feel comfortable talking to him instead of giving just generic. Answers.

SPEAKER_03 44:01

I think one of the things too is that it might not happen on the first try. Don't get, you know, um, man, this didn't happen. I'm not going back. Don't look at it that way. Anytime you do anything in life, you might the first time might not work out for you. That's okay. Keep looking. Eventually you're gonna find a doctor that clicks with you. And that might be the doctor that you follow up with for the rest of your life.

unknown 44:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 44:25

Thank you. You know what? You're in the right place. Because we have some representatives here that could probably direct you from Baptists could direct you in the right direction, you know, because they have a plethora of doctors to choose from, primary care physicians. So you're in the right place. So yeah, I'm sure some people here that can help you out. Thank you. Great question. And you know what? There is a dilemma because, you know, it's hard to find doctors that kind of look like us. It really is. You know, that we feel comfortable talking to. That we can really be transparent because they kind of relate to our background and our history or our heritage or what have you. It is. It's hard. You know. So, you know, trying to find the right doctor you can trust is extremely uh is a big dilemma that a lot of people face. You know, so I I recommend you get a second, third opinion, you know, until you find the right one.

SPEAKER_04 45:29

Yeah. Good morning to the both of you. Um, my name is Brandon Starkin. As a former alumni of your high school, I played in both uh Go Sharks. Go Sharks, yeah. I played in both the soccer team and the cross country team. So my question to you is how can we get more students of this new generation to play sports and just educate them overall of health from young?

SPEAKER_06 45:56

Well, um, you know what?

SPEAKER_07 46:00

I think a lot of I think it's a great question, you know, how we can get more students to play. It's just from from when I grew up to now, you know, I mean, I'm 56 years old. Back then we didn't have as many distractions. You know, if you wanted to punish me, make me stay in the house.

SPEAKER_06 46:19

Now it's the totally opposite.

SPEAKER_07 46:21

You know, you want to punish, uh, you know, want to punish your child, make them go outside. Really? You know, because you know, kids want to stay in the house all day playing video games, sitting on the couch and what have you. They're not as active as we were. You know, we had so many two, three, four sport athletes when I was growing up because we were outside all the time playing all different types of sports. I got a friend of mine, you know, who, you know, played, he was track, all-American, he was a football, he might be in here today, Cherry Kirby, you know. So, I mean, we grew up together in, you know, football. He played professional football, played in the NFL, and he played basketball. I mean, so he was a four plus four sport athlete, incredible athlete, is because when we grew up, we were outside all day, you know. So I think it has to come from, it really has to come from the adults in your life exposing you to opportunities. Uh team, team sports is extremely important, uh, especially as young people transition into life, you know. But I think it starts with the adults in their life. That's where it starts. You know, otherwise it's kind of hard to get kids to uh to or to encourage them to want to be actively involved in sports. It is. It's hard because it's it's too many distractions. You know, and because of I see one back there on video games right now. He's he's back there typing away, you know what I'm saying? So, you know, all day long, you know, that's the mentality of a lot of kids, you know. They're they're playing video games.

SPEAKER_06 48:13

Thank you.

SPEAKER_11 48:19

Thank you for being y'all here. Uh, my name is Donnell. You guys talked about like, you know, getting checked up and make sure that your health is all right. But could you talk about the after you get checked, you know, staying consistent and what it takes for you to be able to kind of maintain your health after you go to see the doctor?

SPEAKER_03 48:38

So I I think that's a great question. You know, uh even if you go to your first visit, let's say you get your physical done, everything looks great, love work looks great, screenings are fine. Well, why don't you go back? Well, from one year to the next, things can change. Things can change drastically, you might not feel anything, and you know, you might be 30 this year, 31 next year, and things change fast. And that's why I always tell patients, you know, make sure you keep going. It's not a one-time thing. Uh, just like you don't get, you know, any, you know, your oil change, you get it every so often. You don't do it one time and never do it again. You have to keep doing it. Um, and the same thing with your health. You have to keep going. So even though you do it one year, keep doing it every year.

SPEAKER_07 49:18

Yeah, I mean, I I totally agree with you, you know, and we use a car analogy because we all have cars, and uh, you know, you just don't wash your car once a year. I mean, you wash it more than once a year. You don't just put gas in it once a year. You know, you don't. You know, you continue to take care of it, you know, so it can get you from A to B. It's the same thing with your body. I like I said, we spend more time taking better care of our cars than we do our bodies. We care about what we put in our cars, you know, instead of caring what we put into our body on a consistent basis, you know. So uh the consistency, the healthy habits with creatures of habit. The healthy habits establishing is extremely important. You know. Every morning when I get up, I drink uh a pint of beet juice because I know it helps promote circulation, you know, every morning. And it's I don't like the taste of it, you know, but I've gotten used to it. But it's a habit. It's fresh squeeze, I got a juicer in my house, I juice it. The night before I stick it in the refrigerator, it takes but a second with a beet, you know. Uh I do carrot, beet, and celery. And I drank it every morning. You know, I did it this morning before I come here, you know, and it's a it's a healthy habit of mine. So, you know, you can establish habits. You establish habits doing everything else you want to do, brushing your teeth in the morning, whatever. Okay? You can establish healthy habits.

SPEAKER_06 50:52

You can do that. Yeah. Thank you. How's it going on?

SPEAKER_07 50:58

This is gonna be the last question right here. I'm sorry. We just got the word. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_05 51:02

Hey, how's it going on? So my name's Anke. Um, you had mentioned that a lot of men are deficient in vitamin D. Four so four years ago, I was told that I'm very sufficient in vitamin D, so I started taking it. I know nowadays there's a lot of these like a lot of products that, you know, gummies and like all this have you know extra ingredients in it. Is there a certain company that you know other of you would recommend that is you know more potent or like that you believe is better?

SPEAKER_03 51:35

You know, there's for a lot of these vitamins, minerals, there's a lot of formulations, you know, there's a lot of over-the-counter medications. Obviously, when it comes to like vitamin D specifically, you want to speak to your primary care because there's different levels. You might have mild vitamin D deficiency, moderate or severe. Depending on the results, you might need a prescription medication. So some people take prescription vitamin D. Some people don't need that much. They only take over-the-counter. In regards to specific formulations, I mean, there's a lot of different types. You know, most of the ones over the counter are pretty safe and effective. So there isn't one that I would say, you know, take this one. But uh, one of the things I would tell you to do is make sure that you get your levels checked uh every year if you have a history of it. See what kind of vitamin D you need, if you need a prescription strength one, or just a mild version over the counter. And um, I think that'll be a good conversation to have with your primary care.

SPEAKER_07 52:23

And and mind you, you know, there's there's so many other doctors, there's and there's so many different blood tests you can do, extensive tests, where you can find out what foods affect you more than others, um, where you're deficient in vitamins, all that stuff. There's a certain blood test that you can, I forgot what kind of doctors they are that you can go to and they can they do those extensive tests.

SPEAKER_03 52:53

So uh it depends. Depends. I mean, they have a lot of different uh extensive testing you can do. Sometimes you can do with your primary care, sometimes with certain specialists.

SPEAKER_07 53:00

Yeah, you can do a certain specialist, and they can tell you all these different things that you probably should stay, foods that you should stay away from, um vitamins that you need, all of that stuff, you know. Just do your research. Uh I've had tests done like that, you know, so I know with foods that I don't eat a lot of, I try to stay away from those things, you know. It it let me tell you what, it's as you get older, shit just pops up. I'm gonna just tell you, you know, I mean it does. You know, things just pop up out of the blue, you know, and uh I'm living testimony of it, you know, because I went from, you know, living this life where I was feeling good and feeling invincible to as I got older, just things just started just popping up out of the blue, you know. So, you know, it's just it's amazing how much work I spend trying to stay on this side of the ground now more than ever. You spend so much time, whether it be working out, eating right, going to the doctor, you doing all of this stuff to make sure you stay on this side of the ground as long as you can. So, you know, uh, I encourage you all to be active participants in your own health. I encourage you all to do that because nobody can do it for you. You got to do it yourself, you know. So I become a student of that. I really have. And today, I'm your messenger, okay? Uh all those things that I've gone through, like I shared with you all in the beginning. I went through those things for a reason. And this is the reason to become a spokesperson and a messenger to other men. To take better care of yourself than take charge of your health.

SPEAKER_01 54:46

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