“Hello. My name is Larry. I've been a professional chef for 40 years. One of my greatest passions is my home garden. I cook almost everything that comes out of there. I feel cooking brings me so much joy. It takes my mind off of what’s happening in life.

Two years ago, I was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. My wife was with me when we went to the urologist, and when he came in – and really just sat down and said, "Hey, I have some bad news. You have stage 4 prostate cancer." After that you don't hear anything else. I didn't really know what he said after that, I was in such shock.

And at that point is when your body kind of shuts down, your mind shuts down, and you start anxiety and worrying. You hear the cancer word…

Both my children were in college and Thanksgiving was coming. We were going to see them at Thanksgiving, so we decided to kind of get more information, process our self, and go through, get all the scans and see what's going on, get everything finalized before we would tell the children.

Right after diagnosis, to me, was the hardest part. You know what you have, but you're not quite sure of what the future is.

So, you start getting anxiety, you start thinking about things. You start thinking about, “am I going to see grandchildren, am I going to see my daughter get married, am I going to see my son get married?” Those are things that you start to get really upset about.

Your emotions are running wild. So, I really think that first three month-period is a hard time because you don't understand the disease, you don't understand the treatment. I was lucky enough that my urologist has an advanced prostate cancer center and there's a nurse navigator there who took the time and actually met with my wife and I.

She met us after hours at the office and she prepared a binder for us, and she went through the binder with my wife and I and explained this is the ADT treatment and this is what you're going to be on.

I've been taking Lupron Depot for my advanced prostate cancer since shortly after my diagnosis.

The doctor talked to me about the side effects of the injection. He laid out the possible things that could happen and what were the most common. I started with the six-month dose. We wanted to test the PSA and the testosterone more often. So, I now get a three-month dose and I also get my testing of my testosterone at that time.

Being a chef, I started looking at healthy recipes. I focus in on creating a meal that tastes great.

I make something, people sit down, they eat it, we share it, they love it, and it makes them feel good. That makes me feel good.”