No. Prostate Cancer is not the “good one”

The narrative is tidy. The reality is not.

People say all kinds of things when they find out you have prostate cancer.

“Oh, that’s the good one.”

“If you’re going to get cancer, that’s the kind to get.”

“Uncle Bob had it. He’s fine. Lost a little down there, but hey—still golfing!”

These comments are delivered with the confident tone of someone who once read an article in a waiting room and now believes themselves an authority on urological fate. It’s meant to reassure. But it lands somewhere between tone-deaf and absurd. Let me offer a correction: if this is the “good” cancer, I’d hate to see the bad ones.

I’ve been diagnosed with high-risk prostate cancer. And no, that’s not the warm-and-fuzzy version. It comes with a steep PSA, aggressive cell patterns, and words like “perineural invasion” that make even seasoned oncologists frown into their coffee. There is no “watchful waiting” here. There is no “small bump in the road.” There is a full-court press of hormone suppression, radiation, injections, scans, and silent calculations no one wants to say out loud.

I am not devastated. I’m not shaking my fist at the heavens. I’m on Firmagon, a hormone-suppressing drug that’s left me with the emotional depth of a cold yam. But I am grieving—just not what people expect.

It’s not my mortality I mourn. It’s the system. The ritual depersonalization. The slow and seamless replacement of medicine with manufacturing.

Somewhere along the line, healthcare stopped being about care. It became process. Diagnosis, categorize, apply template, discharge. Repeat. It’s not medicine—it’s operational logistics. And I? I’m not a patient. I’m a barcode. A chart. A line item in someone’s quarterly review.

When I received my diagnosis, it didn’t lead to a thoughtful conversation. It triggered a workflow. PSA? Gleason? Protocol 7A. We’ll beam you, drug you, and file you. Please don’t ask too many questions. You’ll jam the system.

And I don’t resist. I comply. I sit. I nod. I attend my appointments like a citizen of the bureaucracy. But I’m fully aware that if I died mid-consultation, someone would update my file before closing my eyes.

What’s missing isn’t care—it’s thought. The professional curiosity. The raised eyebrow that once said, “This doesn’t quite add up.” That moment is gone. There’s no billing code for nuance. No reimbursement for uncertainty. We’ve replaced judgment with guidelines, and humanity with templates.

If you dare ask for something different—something tailored—you’re marked as “complex.” “Noncompliant.” A threat to throughput. Heaven forbid you need medicine that isn’t pre-approved by flowchart.

I don’t rage. Rage would require more hormonal capacity than I’m currently authorized to possess. What I do is observe. Document. Witness the quiet dismemberment of individuality in the name of efficiency.

They say cancer robs you of power. But let’s be honest: the system got there first. It took my individuality, stapled it to a protocol, and called it care. I’m not angry. Just quietly aware that I am being processed like all the rest.

So no, prostate cancer isn’t “the good one.” It’s just the one we’ve learned to market well. We’ve turned it into a manageable narrative. Not by making it easier, but by making the process more sterile.

Let’s not confuse predictability with compassion. Behind the spreadsheets, the survival curves, and the cheerful pamphlets, some of us are still watching. Still thinking.

So the next time someone tells you they have prostate cancer, maybe skip the clichés. Don’t offer them borrowed optimism.

Just ask how they’re really doing.

And please—don’t tell them it’s the good one.