This article is part of a two-part series by Anissa Durham that explores the lives of Black men battling prostate cancer. Read part two here. This story is copublished with CalMatters.
The night he found out, Jerry McCormick was alone in a hotel room in Las Vegas. It was a Friday night, the start of a weekend trip to see Janet Jackson in concert. But before heading out for a night on the town, he checked his email. A message from LabCorp was in his inbox: Biopsy results.
“I was looking at the results, and I was like, Oh my God,” McCormick says. He didn’t call anyone. He didn’t tell anyone. He spent the next seven hours going down the Google rabbit hole on all things prostate cancer. The next morning, he broke the news to his husband. Richard’s response was immediate: “We’re going to beat this.”
In the weeks that followed, McCormick started telling close friends and family. “When people hear cancer, they’re like ‘ohhhhhh’ — you know, that pity thing. But I don’t want to be pitied,” he says. While some were at a loss for words, others immediately offered encouragement. His sister lost her husband in late 2024 to a different kind of cancer. She took it hard. But he repeated one short phrase to himself, “I will be OK.”
In the meantime, McCormick joined Facebook support groups, started writing on Substack, and faced the reality that he was fighting for his life. The longtime San Diego journalist, college professor, and student mentor coped the best way he knew how — by telling his story.
“It’s the quiet moments that sneak up on you,” he says. “I tend to stay pretty busy, but then when I get in bed at night, since the diagnosis, I think about this every day. Like, I have prostate cancer. What am I going to do? It’s scary and surreal at the same time.”
Cancer is one of the most frightening words that can come out of a doctor’s mouth. One in eight Black men will develop prostate cancer, compared to 1 in 12 white men, says Dr. Brent Rose, associate professor of radiation oncology at the University of California, San Diego. And Black men are more likely to be diagnosed at younger ages. As a result, the American Cancer Society recommends African American men begin prostate cancer screenings at age 45.
Since turning 50, McCormick has gotten an annual prostate exam. Last summer, he found himself getting up to urinate six or seven times a night. Within weeks of his first doctor’s visit, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
For the 57-year-old longtime San Diego journalist, the diagnosis came as a total shock — no one in his family has dealt with it.
The most widely known way to check for prostate cancer is through a digital rectal exam. But Dr. Rose says this is not as effective as a prostate-specific antigen blood test. Recent guidelines from the American Urological Association recommend clinicians use the PSA as the first screening test. And if necessary, the digital rectal exam.
“A lot of guys think of the digital rectal exam and start to get worried about it … we don’t want that to be a barrier for cancer screening,” Dr. Rose says. “Digital rectal exams are not recommended.”
Prostate cancer is disproportionately more deadly among Black men because they’re diagnosed at later stages, often when treatment options narrow. They have the highest death rate compared to any other racial and ethnic group, and are twice as likely to die from the largely preventable disease. Dr. Rose has a few theories why: access to care, genetics, and social determinants of health — like racism and poverty.
In September, McCormick went in for a biopsy. Half of the tissue samples came back cancerous. Doctors gave him two options: radiation or prostate cancer removal surgery. The former requires daily treatment for multiple weeks. And the latter is, typically, a one-time procedure.
McCormick had just started a new job and didn’t want to be out of the office for weeks. Surgery carried risks, including infertility, but as a gay Black man, he doesn’t plan to have kids.
Even so, he was concerned about how this decision would affect his husband, Richard. The two have been together for 23 years. McCormick was frank about his sexual concerns.
Indeed, the tradeoff for survival often includes sexual changes. According to the American Cancer Society, it’s common for men who’ve undergone treatment for prostate cancer — such as surgery, radiation, or hormone therapy — to experience some form of erectile dysfunction. Men may have “dry orgasms” where they feel pleasure without ejaculation. They may also experience retrograde ejaculation, where semen flows backwards into the bladder. And some men may also leak small amounts of urine.
“The mechanics of our sexual activity is different. We walk through life a different way,” he says. So he opted for the surgery since it seemed like a faster procedure that would allow him to move on with his life.
McCormick woke up without pain. It was Dec. 4, 2025, and he assumed his prostate cancer removal surgery was over. While he waited to speak to the surgeon, his mind raced: How did the surgery go?
When the surgeon entered the room, she delivered news no patient wants to hear. His abdominal wall was too thick to penetrate, and she would have to reschedule his surgery. The realization, she said, came only after three small incisions had already been made on his lower abdomen.
“It was an emotional rollercoaster,” he says. Then, finally, the anesthesia wore off, and the incision pain hit.
On the bright side, McCormick was able to celebrate Christmas and the New Year at home with loved ones. His new surgery date was Jan. 6, 2026. But days before his procedure, and at the height of flu season, McCormick got sick. Now this surgery hinged on how quickly he’d be feeling better.
The surgeon told him, if he’s not better soon, they’d have to reschedule again. Eventually, his cough went away, and doctors cleared him. The night before, McCormick was instructed to prepare with a dose of laxatives at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., no food after midnight, and use an antibacterial wash the morning of.
When he woke up from surgery, the doctors said everything went well. After weeks of mental preparation, prayers, and words of empowerment, it seemed things were finally starting to look up. The doctor said the procedure involved a bigger incision than the first attempt. With the help of an IV drip of OxyContin and Valium, the pain was manageable. Two days later, doctors gave him the green light to go home.
“I couldn’t laugh, talk, or breathe,” he says. “It was painful.”
On Jan. 12, he ended up in the emergency room and was later admitted to the hospital. One of his incisions had gotten infected.
Recovery, McCormick says, has been anything but linear. He’s grieving the life he had before prostate cancer. But documenting his experience on Substack has given him a new purpose.
“I promised myself that I would use this experience to educate people,” he says. As a college professor, doing so is in his DNA. “If I know something, I want other people to know it. I don’t want them to get the sanitized version” of having prostate cancer.
“It’s scary,” he says. “Some days I’m super angry. Other days I’m like, I got this.” But despite the many challenges, he credits his village — his friends, family, and coworkers — with getting him through it all.
In recent months, he’s received flowers, a Superwoman-inspired blanket, check-in calls, and I love you texts. Estranged relatives reached out. Close friends called his husband after each surgery for updates. Even his coworkers pooled their money and got him a $200 DoorDash giftcard.
His three best friends are his “ride or die.” If anything happens to him, he knows they’d drop everything to be there.
“I’ve spent the majority of my life giving to the world,” he says.
Now, he’s focused on giving to himself.
And he’s quick to remind other Black men: this can happen to you, too. Prostate cancer is treatable, especially if it’s caught early. It’ll be a few more weeks before he finds out if the cancer is all gone. In the meantime, McCormick is hopeful that this, too, shall pass.
