Hope

I started this blog because friends told me that many people would benefit from my story. To me there is no other reason to do this. I struggle as a writer. It happens when I write songs also. I get so frustrated as everything I write sounds like something that has already been written. There are a million places on the Web where a man can get information about prostate cancer. So what can I tell you that's different?
     About a year after my diagnosis I found a website called healing well. I was working night shift at the time and there was very little actual work for me to do. I would find myself surfing the web searching for answers to the only two questions that I had back then. What was it like to die from prostate cancer and how long was I going to live? It was a very dark time in my life and the people that I met there gave me hope. Hope is the most powerful weapon we have in our arsenal against this disease. After 6 years at healing well.com , I am one of the veterans. I am one of the guys charged with giving hope to others. I love my job. the problem is that for the most part I can't relate to 80 or 90 percent of the men who find that website. I am going to anger a lot of men with my next statement but I believe it to be true.  In the world of cancer prostate cancer is one of the easiest cancers to cure. it is also one of the more indolent cancers. I can't remember the exact number I read but the amount of men who die in their 70's 80's and 90's who had prostate cancer and didn't know it is staggering. I am NOT one of those guys. I cannot write about catheters or surgeries or how long it took me to stop wetting my pants. I don't know the first thing about penile rehabilitation. If you have found this blog and you are one of those guys. I hope you stick around and I hope you enjoy reading this but you need to realize that a lot of the information will not pertain to you. I have stage 4 prostate cancer. until something changes I will never be cured. I most likely will die of this disease and not with it. The good news is that new cutting edge treatments have turned even late stage prostate cancer into a chronic disease. researchers are learning to harness the immune system to fight the disease. Our focus must be on the living and not on the cancer. If you are a late stage cancer patient and you have found this blog the very first thing I want you to know is that there is hope and I have seven years of living with this disease to prove it. There is hope. there is hope. there is hope.