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A selection from:
Men,Women, and Prostate Cancer
Pages 24-25
Over the past several years we conducted many in-depth interviews with different kinds of patient-caregiver partnerships
involved in a wide variety of prostate cancer situations. The
insights gained from these interviews, from consultations with
experts in the field, and from our own professional experience as
therapists form the heart and soul of this book, and will assist you
in coping with many of the ''hidden struggles'' that can attend the
illness. Among these issues are:
♦ how to deal with panic, denial, anger, or other emotions that commonly arise after the diagnosis;
♦ how to build up an effective, reliable, and nurturing
network of support among your family and friends;
♦ how to work constructively with doctors and other
medical personnel to develop the most effective
treatment program and to respond to your specific
needs and desires;
♦ how to handle both practical and emotional matters
having to do with impotence, incontinence, and
other adverse physical effects of the illness or its
treatment.
For your convenience, this book is organized according to
the progress of the illness === from cause, detection, and diagnosis
(chapters 2 through 5), to treatment (chapters 6, 7, and 8), to
recovery from treatment (chapter 9), to post-treatment life (chapter
10). However, regardless of where you and your partner now find
yourselves along this continuum, you will both benefit greatly
from reading the entire book. Many physical, emotional, psychological, and interpersonal matters that become critically important
during a later phase of the illness have their origin in an earlier
phase.
The more informed you are about prostate cancer as a whole,
the better able you will be to manage each and every day of living
with it. So little is known for sure about the illness, and so many
myths circulate, that every bit of understanding you can bring to
your experience of it will be enormously valuable to you, your
doctor, and your loved ones.
[end of chapter 1]
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