Living with Metastatic Prostate Cancer

Being diagnosed with cancer is not a punishment. You are not being punished for something you did in this life, in the last life, whatever you believe. Cancer is a disease, just like a cold and a flu, it is just a tad more serious. It is not your responsibility, it is not your fault and you are not an evil person because you have had cancer but also remember having cancer does not end your life. I was diagnosed with cancer almost 12 years ago with prostate cancer, my earliest cancer which was thyroid cancer was 24 years. I am feeling today as healthy and as happy as I was prior to my first cancer diagnosis. I remember everyday that I am alive and that I have happiness and joy and goodness in my life and to me that is really what is important. I tried to deal with my life a little differently. I remember that I am alive, so I try to find ways to live my life. I don't fight with things that don't work in my life, I don't want to struggle with things, I find something that does work for me and that is what I do. I did not choose to have cancer, but I do and that is the end of it. I have a goal that I try to work on everyday. I try to stay in the present and I even go into the future because I believe that I have a future and I think having cancer does not mean that you don't have a future. I listen to my body, I tune in to what it is telling me. I make every attempt I can to eliminate stress from my life. I think stress is bad for us whether you have cancer or not and I think having cancer makes stress even more dangerous. You have to find positives in your diagnosis. In my case, having been diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer has allowed me to go on and work with many men who have prostate cancer, to try to help them work through the issue, so for me, it has given me a whole new passion and that is a positive in my diagnosis. If you are sick of people calling you and asking you how are you feeling, set up a web page, where you can every few days write something. There is an organization called Caring Bridge that will give you a free web page where you can report it and this is particularly good when you are undergoing treatment if you are having surgery or radiation and people who meanwhile call and you kind of get sick of saying the same thing again and again. This is a way for you to be able to communicate but not feel burdened by people trying to be good. Exercise is vital, 30 minutes minimum each and every day, walk a lot. I wasn't walking, so my family went out and bought me a dog. My dog is probably the best walked dog in my neighborhood and I get to walk a lot, so it is great. Some prostate cancers are high risk, aggressive, and more likely to spread. Others are low risk, least likely to have bad outcomes. The biopsy says cancer, but current diagnostic tools provide limited information about how aggressive a man's individual disease is, so most men decide to treat prostrate cancer immediately. Once treated, many men experience serious long-term side effects like incontinence and *** impotence. Immediate treatment is not always needed, but right now a man can't be sure if his cancer is the kind that is likely to require treatment or if he is okay to wait for now. What if there was a test that could determine how aggressive prostate cancer is. Genomic health is developing a new test to do just that. By reviewing the underlying biology of the tumor and using genes from multiple biologic pathways, the test can predict the aggressiveness of prostate cancer when diagnosed, allowing a man to make a more informed treatment decision with confidence, taking care of himself with more information and greater peace of mind.