There are various support groups recommended by the Institute and I decided to visit two of them this week.
The first was a men’s support group that met at the institute and the meeting was followed by a catered lunch. Between 15 and 20 men attended this group and the format was such that each man had two or three minutes to share his story. I had three major takeaways from this meeting. First, most of the men in the group were in the eight-week category while I was in the six-week category. This means their condition was a lot more serious than mine. Second, most of these men had a history of prostate cancer in their families. Fathers, brothers, grandfathers. Third, many of the men were on hormone therapy, and after listening to their comments and how the therapy was affecting them, I was more comfortable with my decision NOT to take the hormone therapy. More on this in a later post.
The second group that I attended was hosted at Third & Main. This group was organized by Melissa and designed to get the Institute patients and their caregivers together in a social setting. The conversations started out with the topics of weather and where are you from, etc. But soon evolved into cancer topics. One of the major takeaways I had from this meeting was I felt like I was from a little backwater town. Most of these people had doctors and advisors who were aware of proton therapy and strongly suggested and supported it. None of my doctors mentioned proton therapy and a 200+ page book that I was given by one of my doctors did not mention proton therapy at all. I should work on this when I get home.