If you decided to quit this forum, would you announce it or just go?

My thanks to those who built this site and everyone in our group today. My visits seem to coincide with my diligence with AS. I allowed a few years to go by being busy with life, didn't visit my Uro or HW. Lately I had my first Mp-MRI and then followed up with the MRI guided Biopsy, my third biopsy, but my first with only local sedation. My anxiety concerns and questions were answered, in our typical non judgmental fashion, by our group members and that helped me accept and move forward with a proper AS protocol. I am in awe of those of our members and families who are battling all the side effects of high risk situations with multi year treatments and and still find time to share their experiences and knowledge. I'm here for the long term, first to learn and then to teach. Thank you!

Some of the responses in this thread have highlighted how some people get simply too obsessed with internet chat forums.

Take a break. Get outside. Go out to dinner with friends, and see what they are up to. My own practice is that I typically check-in here and at 2 other non-PC sites I participate in about once per weekday after I get caught-up with daily emails but before starting my project-work and/or in the afternoon while winding-down. I rarely check-in here nights, usually not on weekends, and never on vacations—these are the times I spend with my wife, family, friends, and pursuing interests!

There's a bunch of people here who are addicts. Check your post count...in the many thousands? (A clue, but not the sole indicator.) This could be you! Here's online help for your online forum addiction: How to Deal With an Internet Forum Addiction

Or join the Internet Addiction Forum

This thread is an indicator that there is a problem...

Post Edited (NKinney) : 1/8/2018 9:53:23 AM (GMT-7)

I tend to "drift away" as my situation changes. PCa is pretty much behind me, and suddenly has been replaced by another "bolt from the blue", brain cancer. This is a new primary site, an astrocytoma, not a met from the PCa. Too bad that there is not a site for that as good as this one has been.

Lol NKinney,

Join an internet addiction forum to address one’s addiction to Internet forums!

I hope InTheShop isn't gone. He's a voice of reason and levity in a pool of people not willing to be that...

Godspeed.

I went through these emotions at the forum when I was a regular/moderator/survivor. For me when I decided I got what I needed here, I wanted to stay and help others but learned a valuable lesson, not everyone wants my help.

My best advice is to guide guys to make educated decisions and not emotional decisions. If you get PO'd take a break. It helps. And you probably need it. Staying away because someone PO'd you and not grasping the true life experiences being shared here is an emotional decision. Especially if you can still get valuable information.

For me I mostly "lurk" here. I need the input from all that post here and other places to make me better as a patient representative in major panels, task forces, support groups, etc. By standing close by I get the new guys, the veterans, family input, and the zealots. All of which can offer me useful information about treatment experiences and patients attitudes towards others that chose other paths in their care. I regularly mention to the researchers my experiences here and other websites like this. I still harbor Healingwell as the site that got me through my experience with advanced prostate cancer.

LOL but there are few that can help me in my ASCO molecular guidelines panel duties. Same with the AUA/ASTRO/SUO treatment guidelines that were published last May. And not too many can comprehend the duties and science involved with the NCI Prostate Task Force committee I was recently elected to serve on. But it was my experiences here that made it possible for me to ever do anything like that.

I thank you all!

RobLee said...

White Bird said...
PCa is pretty much behind me, and suddenly has been replaced by another "bolt from the blue", brain cancer. This is a new primary site, an astrocytoma, not a met from the PCa.

Wow, I'm so sorry to read this. While you are fortunate to have whipped the PCa, to get hit with this double whammy is indeed very sad. Do you have a prognosis and treatment plan yet?. I hate to say it, but I have lost a couple friends to GBM, which it sounds like yours is not... still, anything upstairs is very serious. I wish you good luck conquering this beast, and please keep us informed of your progress.

A double whammy indeed. Cancer has gotten both of my brains. In the last 2 months I have had a biopsy and then concurrent radiation and chemo and the growth of the tumor has stopped but not diminished in size (Large Egg). I am slated for 6 months to a year of chemo. I am tired and the chemo has thrown my taste off.

Well guys I still check in from time to time. When I first got on the sight I was Che King and posting daily. Now I mostly read. I have been very fortunate to meet so many of the guys on HW and consider many of the a great friends. Each year we have a gathering in Rochester, NY during September. In Narch or April we do a second gathering eith in Florida or in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The Louisiana gathering is at my house. We have had as many as 59 people at the gatherings.

I still enjoy keeping up with the members.

This sight has been a wonderful thing for me.

Cajun Jeff

Ddyss, If the next gathering is in Florida you should drop by. It is life changing to get to know some of the guys first hand,

wow. This has to be the longest thread I ever caused...

There you go, Andrew, see how valuable you are to this forum?

Your declaration of leaving has proven to be the inspiration for what is turning out to be this, the most replied-to thread I have ever started in all the years I have been here.

Guess when your name is involved you're some kind of posting-magnet or something!

Which means you need to stick around here and keep the threads active!

Seriously, though (or at least a little more seriously) a curious phenomenon is occurring here. Namely, there have been times in the past when I have started a thread on this forum that I thought would get a lot of responses, but it just fizzled with few or none. Then, at times, I would start a thread which I thought would be a kind of throw-away thread, getting maybe a handful of replies and that was it, like this one frankly, but then it really took off. Hard to figure that out.

Again, must be the Andrew factor!