Similarly, my urologist didn't walk me through all the alternative treatment options.

When I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in April 2012, my first comments to my urologist were, “I don’t know anything about prostate cancer so, I’ve got a zillion questions to ask before you cut anything out of me, or bombard me with radiation, or inject toxic chemicals into me……” That set the tone for our future discussions and my priorities.

Having chosen active surveillance (I was on active surveillance for 9 years), I found that it was up to me to ask the questions, do the research, self-advocate, share in the decision-making, and ask for referrals.

Urologists know mostly about surgery, radiation oncologists know mostly about radiation, etc…. So, I asked my urologist for referrals:
> focal therapy (cryo; HIFU; laser ablation)
> internal radiation (LDR; HDR)
> external radiation: SBRT (Cyberknife; TruBeam), IMRT, & Proton.

I spent much time and researched the treatments, interviewed the specialists, became a “student of prostate cancer” (as I call it), and ultimately made my own treatment decisions, as well as coming up with a tentative plan in case of recurrence.

In the process, we had quite a few discussions. We weren’t always in agreement on the treatment path. When their argument was stronger than mine, we went with their recommendation; when mine was stronger than theirs, we went with my recommendation. We all worked together. I had the final sign-off with any action we took - self-advocacy and shared decision-making.

This (I found) was just part of the learning process, just as I’ve done for any other illness, disease, or illness that I’ve had in recent years (and had the time to research, like there almost always is with prostate cancer).

Having been fully informed, I’m confident I’ve made the right choices given the information that I had available at the time.

Never any “what if” thoughts.

(“You go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had.”)