For men, there’s no excuse to ignore your health

Like breast cancer awareness in October, November is a time for highlighting the issues faced in men’s health. And for good reason. Half of all men have high blood pressure. Nearly 40 percent of us are overweight. And heart disease and cancer make up two of the three leading causes of death.

The “Movember” movement takes center stage in November, raising awareness of issues like prostate and testicular cancer. The simple fact in late 2025 is that there are few men who aren’t touched by prostate cancer, whether it’s personally, or if it’s afflicted a friend or family member.

We brought together four Pensacola-area men to talk about their journeys with prostate cancer. The Rev. Dr. Joseph L. Marshall leads St. John Divine Missionary Baptist Church and served in the United States Navy — including a stint with the Blue Angels. David Alexander is pastor at Jesus Holy Tabernacle Church in Pensacola and was a law enforcement officer for more than three decades, and served as chief of the Pensacola Police Department from 2015 to 2017. Rick Anderson is a U.S. Army veteran and has been a urology technician for 25 years. And Phil Nickinson (your humble author) has more than 25 years in print and online journalism and works in communications at Community Health Northwest Florida.

They’re joined by Dr. Erin Smith, MD, a physician here at Community Health’s Jackson Street adult and family practice.

Nobody really wants to think about getting cancer. But we can’t afford not to. The American Cancer Society estimates there will be more than 313,000 diagnoses of prostate cancer in 2025, and nearly 36,000 deaths. One in eight men will be diagnosed in their lifetime.

If it’s going to happen, you’ll almost certainly want to know sooner rather than later. That’s the ballgame when it comes to treating cancer. That’s why regular doctor visits are so important.

“We prefer you come to the doctor when nothing’s wrong,” says Dr. Smith. “Get a baseline. Let us see what you look like at your happiest and healthiest so that we can catch when something does go wrong.”

And that’s even more true when you have a family history of something. Say, like prostate cancer. “Any medical condition that runs in your family,” says Dr. Smith, “you definitely should get that checked on — especially if it’s cancer.” If you have a parent who was diagnosed at, say, 5o years old, Dr. Smith recommends starting your own screenings at 40 years old. Check with your provider, of course, but 10 years earlier is a pretty good rule of thumb.

“The fear of not knowing is the greater fear to me,” says Pastor Alexander, adding that the fear of the unknown is worse than a quick, albeit uncomfortable test.

A throughline for many men we talk to is fear of “the finger,” by which they mean the physical test in which the prostate itself is palpated. There’s only one way to do that, and it’s not really anyone’s idea of a good time. It’s not the only means of detection, though. Again, you’ll want to talk to your provider about the best way to proceed. And that could well start with a simple blood test to get a baseline PSA score.

I go to the doctor twice a year for the better part of a decade, thanks to a visit to the optometrist nearly a decade a go. They spotted my pretty obvious hypertension — that’s the official name for high blood pressure — and we quickly got that under control with medication. The past several years saw my first visits to a urologist, thanks to the history of prostate cancer on the male side of my family. For me, for now, it’s an annual visit. Blood test, and then the dreaded finger. It’s not great. But it’s important, and it only takes a few seconds for another year of peace of mind.

“There’s really nothing to it,” says Rick Anderson. “My advice: If you want to live? Go get checked. Get it done. Cancer’s a killer. It’s no joke.”