Encountering the Realities of Prostate Cancer allows the reader to obtain a comprehensive patient’s eye view of the clinical, emotional, relational and spiritual experience of prostate cancer from the time of first symptoms to diagnosis to treatment and to living as survivor with an advanced cancer that can return at any time.

The book discusses how to use the Internet and join cancer-specific social networking sites to connect with other men in similar situations, to ask questions, gain practical knowledge, and provide support and encouragement for each other.

It also explores feelings--why some men feel free to talk openly about their prostate cancer while others remain silent--and how baby boomers are likely to be less reticent than previous generations, and teaches strategies for coping with the often-inappropriate responses when the patient tells relatives, friends and acquaintances that he has prostate cancer.

Encountering the Realities of Prostate Cancer shows:

• How to become an informed advocate for your own particular clinical situation by knowing where--and where not--to seek information online
• How to make informed judgments about its validity
• How to have productive conversations you’re your doctors
• How and why men with prostate cancer tend to deal with their illness quite differently than women who have breast and what that difference implies for the patient’s well being
• How to develop the all important “working relationship” with prostate cancer and gain insight into the psychological and emotional struggles it creates