When diagnosed I was at Gleason 9. Like most people, I knew nothing about prostate cancer. It was a punch in the stomach for me and my family. I thought quite a bit about whether or not I should tell my closest friends. If I don’t tell them, will they think I didn’t care enough about them? Eventually I told my four long time friends. It’s been two and a half years since I started treatment and I’m doing as well as can be expected. My quality of life is affected more by the treatment than the cancer, but I’m not sick, so to speak. At this point I wish I hadn’t told anyone. I don’t live near my friends so our communication is through phone and online media. People don’t know what to say, and in my case, none of them say anything. One of them keeps in contact like always but never asks me how I’m doing. The other three pretty much avoid contact. I don’t blame them. It’s a challenge seeing your friends get old and their health decline.