Can You Share Your Wisdom?

Do you remember when the words "prostate cancer" became forever part of your life? How, after diagnosis, you and your wife scrambled to learn everything you could about this disease?

As you well know, surviving prostate cancer -- from deciding your best course of treatment to living with the after-effects of radical prostatectomy, radiation therapy, or medication -- is one of the roughest challenges men and their families can face.

We feel that nobody should have to go through this alone. And this is where, we hope, you'll come in: Would you like to be an advisor to new patients? Could you help get them through the rough spots, the uncertainty, doubts and fears?

Among the first questions men often ask me is, "Is there anyone I can talk to?" Often, their wives are equally interested in talking to another woman who has traveled down this same road.

If you or your spouse would be willing to talk to others going through what you've just experienced, please send me a short note with your address, telephone number and fax number, if available. I will put together a directory sorted by zip codes. This directory will be kept strictly confidential. This information will be available only to me. Then, when I see a patient who would like advice from someone who's "been there," I will pick the patient in the closest zip code and will write to you, asking you to contact him and/or his wife.

Thank you so much for this great help.

Patrick C. Walsh, M.D.
Urologist-in-Chief