My Father's Guide for Prostate Cancer

The book started out in 2010 as a private retirement project for the kids. It expanded into writing about the health benefits of eating real food after listening to what the grandchildren were eating in school. Then came the big announcement day. "Rick...you have cancer," and the time clock for enjoying a full retirement promptly crashed and burned. Out of the ashes came the revelation that men are dying from prostate cancer and all I see and hear is a women's cancer message. I was then motivated to share what the prostate cancer stage IV(c), Gleason score of 9 announcement felt like from a type-A personality, goal-setting man. Now a guide, the pages tell the story right up to when the time it takes for a half-day of production takes three days of rest and pain pills. Brutal is not a big enough word.

Read the guide and soak in this fact. All men will have prostate cancer by age eighty-four. So says my oncologist. Suffer the consequences of not paying attention to the numbers and not going for a complete physical after age thirty-five. My red light flashed bright when I heard from the urologist the blood in my semen will go away in a couple of weeks. It did. The cancer did not. The year was 2011. I should have insisted further testing be done and closer follow-up visits be scheduled.