A High Aim for Cancer Awareness

It’s been 11 years since Terry Weyman’s father died of prostate cancer.

Weyman grieved, but as years passed, he coped. He married. He became a father himself. He felt he had healed.

Then one day in 1999, the 35-year-old Newbury Park chiropractor broke down in tears when he stumbled across a TV documentary on a group of women who had climbed the highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere to raise money for breast cancer research.

Weyman was awed by their accomplishment, and shamed by his inaction.

“In the back of my head, I knew I’d wanted to do something for my father,” he said.

He hatched a plan. Now, his months of preparation are about to come to fruition.

On Jan. 15, the sports enthusiast will lead 27 men from across the United States on a three-week trek in Argentina. The climbers range in age from 22 to 73. The men will scale Aconcagua in the Andes, the same 22,835-foot mountain that the women climbed in the documentary that inspired Weyman.

The men will drink water from melted icecaps. They will rough it in temperatures near 30 below zero. Their abilities--most are amateur climbers--will be tested in oxygen-deprived heights.

Many have personal reasons to take the challenge. Six of the climbers have battled prostate cancer themselves. One, Bob Each of Agoura Hills, has spent five years fighting cancer, which had spread to his spine, ribs, pelvis and one leg before it was detected. Ten other climbers have family members who have struggled with the disease. The others are mountain guides and members of a documentary film crew hoping to sell the story to a cable television network.

Weyman aims to raise $1 million for research and to urge men to receive testing and treatment early enough to increase their chances of survival. Proceeds will be distributed among grant applicants and cancer research groups.

He is copying the Andes climb, he said, because men should be more like women when it comes to fighting disease.

“Women are usually at the heart of most fund-raisers. Men are all about business and denial and fear,” he said. “Women are about prevention. Men are about, ‘Wait until it breaks and then fix it.’

“My dad died because he wasn’t informed. I’m hoping we can get men to put their fears aside and get tested.”

About 180,400 men in United States were diagnosed with the disease last year, and 31,900 died, according to the American Cancer Society.

Charles E. Myers, a prostate cancer expert based in Virginia, said men need to be reassured that they can beat the cancer. The physician treated breast and ovarian cancer for years before shifting his focus to prostate research with the National Cancer Institute.

“One of the things that amazed me when I started treating men with prostate cancer is how many men give up and don’t want to try vigorous treatment because, ‘Gee is it worth it?’ ” he said. “I never heard that from the women I was treating.”

The earlier the diagnosis, the greater the chances of wiping the cancer out, Myers said. Men should begin regular blood tests and rectal exams at age 40. Those with a family history of the disease may be at greater risk and should start testing at 35.

After years of treating others, Myers, 57, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1999. Months of aggressive treatment followed. He seems to have beat it.

Myers said men should not resign themselves to the disease, noting that it spreads more slowly than breast cancer and is highly curable through hormone therapy.

But it is the essence of the therapy--basically a form of chemical castration--that turns so many men away from diagnosis and treatment, activists say. One goal of the climb is to convince men that they still have value with lowered testosterone levels.

Myers says Weyman’s climb is a good way to get the word out. “Having these guys feel so full of life that they can take on a battle like this is sending an important message . . . that a man with [spreading] cancer is going to do this.”

Harry Pinchot, 60, of Oxnard, a cancer patient who is joining the climb, runs the prostate institute’s help line. One recent morning, Pinchot said, three men called to say there were contemplating suicide.

“These are guys in their 50s who are ready to pack it in,” he said.

By climbing Aconcagua, Pinchot said, he and others fighting cancer can show other patients that “theycan do whatever they set out to do.”

Prostate cancer survivors have less muscle mass than other men, because of their lower testosterone levels. Many become anemic. These factors contribute to the challenge of the climb. Many of the climbers who have battled the disease are relying on drugs that increase red blood cells to help get them up the mountain.

With $120,000 raised so far, Weyman’s effort lags far behind where the women were at a similar stage of their preparation. But Weyman said he is determined to hit the $1-million mark. He hopes the documentary will help raise money long after the climb is over.

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An Internet site promotes the event and is seeking donations. The climb can be tracked on the Web site, https://www.prostatecancerclimb.com.