Yes, I am; I’m mad as hell and getting more so by the minute! A week ago I found out I have prostate cancer, and anger doesn’t even begin to express my reaction! I mean, it’s as if part of my body has pulled a Bret Favre on me and “gone over to the enemy!” Just great! Now there’s a treasonous assassin lurking inside of me! Oh, yes, we can and will excise it, but that means massive schedule disruption, financial ramifications, job-related paperwork, possible pain, or worse, not to mention the potential destruction of my sex life and if all that isn’t bad enough, I think about it all the time!
But, I find reasons for optimism.
I have received words of encouragement and support from people that I both know quite well and almost not at all. One such sent me the name, meeting location, dates and time for a Las Cruces prostate cancer support group. It’s the UsToo! Southern New Mexico Chapter and they meet at 6:30 pm on the 4th Tuesday of each month in Memorial Medical Center Conference Room B. Ed Fernandez is the contact person and he can be reached at 575.621.1262 or efernan1@aol.com. This saved me the time and effort of looking up the information for myself. Thanks, Richard!
Another reason for optimism is the advances in surgery techniques and recovery procedures over the past and one half decades or so. When my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer longer ago than that, whether the cure was preferable to the disease was a matter for open and heated debate. Now prostatectomy does not inherently mean continuous bleeding and/or incontinence, pain and the abrupt end of a sex life.
How do I know that? Because of another source of optimism—information! My physician and my urologist told me of two websites with a superabundance of helpful, timely and accurate information. My physician told me that Medline plus is a great source of information about prostate cancer. My urologist told me that Johns Hopkins is the center of the universe when it comes to research plus all the latest and best on prostate cancer treatment, prevention and cure. To tap into this wealth of information, go to the James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Between these two web sites, there is more information than one person can assimilate in quite a while. Thanks amazing doctor guys!
Another source of information is books at Branigan Library. Do a subject or keyword search for prostate cancer and find all manner of books from ones with a Q&A about prostate cancer format to ones about the latest (2006) research trends, to those about a post-prostatectomy love life to much, much more. In fact, I am going down right now to check some out.
MAP