Many patients either want to know everything that is going on with their diagnoses and treatment or they don't want to know any details and just will go along with what their trusted physician tells them.
I found myself as being the former patient mentioned and an extreme one at that. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer I researched as much as anyone possibly could. I wanted to know all the treatment options, prognosis, side effects and I wanted to know what chemotherapy drugs were available for my cancer and everything about them.
Robert Hudick is a patient that wants to know everything about his diagnosis of prostate cancer. He, like me, did all the research about his many options for treatment. Not everyone is lucky enough to have options but when you are faced with making your own treatment decisions it can be very difficult.
These days patients are becoming much more involved in the decisions that make up their treatment plan. Mr. Hudick decided to go even further with the way he took part in his own treatment. Robert not only researched but he changed his life completely. After an estimated 1000 hours of research, he decided he wanted a radical retopublic prostatecomy. Robert also lost 47 pounds to lessen the risk of his upcoming surgery, took yoga and imagery classes and tried Chinese medicine massage techniques.
These things are not for everyone, I myself did not go the alternative route to compliment conventional therapy, but being proactive in our own care is the message.











1. I have to commend people like Robert Hudick and Kristina Collins for wanting to know everything that was going on with their diagnoses and treatment. Ideally, we would conduct such research before the treatments are administered, but we usually don't have the luxury of time to learn what oncologists are not telling us when it matters most. Perhaps, if we keep trying, we can finally break the mold. We have to learn to ask more questions and seek more answers.
Posted at 12:56PM on Sep 5th 2006 by Gregory D. Pawelski