"To the world you may be no one, but to someone you may be the world.' My dad is my world."

"Daddy, guess what you're gonna' be doing this afternoon? You're getting a prostate exam," chirped high-schooler Stacee Hampson one day last August. Jim Hampson had just walked into the Plymouth, Indiana, coffee shop where his youngest child was working a summer job.

His last checkup wasn't too far in the past, but Stacee pleaded and flashed her baby-of-the-family-smile, so he headed off to the hospital's mobile exam room. At age 55, Hampson was the rock others turned to when times were tough; he was strong, healthy, selfless, and devoted to family. His family soon proved to be equally devoted to him. And they insisted that he care for his own health as diligently as he cared for each of them.

The impromptu exam that day revealed a lump in his prostate gland, but results from a blood test for prostate specific antigen (PSA) were slow to arrive, so Hampson felt there couldn't be much cause for worry. When the lab report did come, it showed a very high PSA level. He made an appointment with his personal doctor, but a part of him still wanted to forget about the whole thing.

"I didn't feel bad," Hampson recalled. "I had no problems with my urine stream or an enlarged prostate," he continued. "I didn't know a whole lot about [prostate cancer] at first. I thought, 'Eh, so what, I'll let it go.'"

Hampson's doctor ordered a biopsy. More than 50% of the biopsied cells showed cancer and Hampson moved on to a urologist. He came home with a bewildering set of choices: radioactive seeds, external radiation, two kinds of surgery—all of which carried a risk of impotence or loss of bladder control. Or Hampson could get no treatment and have regular prostate tests to monitor his condition. Some prostate cancers grow very slowly.

It was well into fall when Hampson told 17-year-old Stacee that he did have prostate cancer and would have to decide on a treatment. "The entire world stopped. My heart just dropped," she recalled. Hampson hadn't decided what to do yet, but told his daughter that he was leaning toward "not doing a damn thing."

Stacee asked what would happen if he did nothing, and her father acknowledged there was some chance of the cancer becoming aggressive, a worst-case scenario that might mean he would have only 5-10 years left.

At that moment, with no bothersome symptoms, feeling fine, and facing the chance that any treatment for the disease could cause physical problems...was "doing nothing" a reasonable and well-informed decision? Or was Jim Hampson in denial?

(Choosing how to treat--or not to treat--prostate cancer can be so difficult that the American Cancer Society offers an online message board to answer questions, called Expert Answers for Prostate Cancer.)

What quickly became clear to Stacee was the immeasurable value of her father to the family, and how greatly she herself loved and needed him. She remembers asking, "Do you honestly think this thing is not going to grow?"

The high school senior grabbed a marker and piece of paper, to make her father do the lifeline exercise he'd taught her to use when she was very upset. "On a timeline of ages 0-85 draw where you are now," he used to tell her. "How significant is your concern?"

Stacee insisted that her father draw his own lifeline for the "watch and wait" approach to his prostate cancer diagnosis. She said he drew a line with shaking hands and marked it 0-60. Stacee shared an essay she wrote about the experience.

"'Put a dash when you married mom.' He obeyed silently. 'Put a dash when Jimmy was born.' He made a dash a little under halfway across. 'Put a dash when Holly was born. Put a dash when I was born.' He lowered his head, and didn't even look at the paper when he made the mark 7/8 of the way to the end of the line."

"I took a selfish approach," Stacee recalls. "I told him, 'I need more time with you. You can actually die from this, and I haven't had enough time with you."

A week later, Hampson took the lifeline out of his wallet to show his daughter. He'd scribbled many more life events onto the scrap of paper and decided to go ahead with treatment. In her essay, Stacee paraphrased his words:

"Stacee, you don't understand how precious life is until you have it threatened. In the same sense, you don't understand how precious your life is to others as well. You're right; I have a lot more living to do, and a ton more memories to create with you. It's just not fair to anyone if I don't get this taken care of."

Hampson picked up a marker and extended his lifeline. "You make a choice….You've gotta' do what's right for your family," he explained.

Hampson visited another surgeon; this one was experienced in the technique that removes the prostate through the abdomen, called radical retropubic prostatectomy. He had surgery in February 2005, a quicker return to work than his doctor expected, and seems to be regaining his pre-surgery physical functions on schedule. Though he admits things work a little differently and waiting is frustrating.

Does he have regrets? "As it turned out, [the cancer] was on both sides and was going at a nerve, so it's a damn good thing I got it taken care of," said Hampson. "It would have kicked me out way early."

Not long after the surgery, Stacee's essay about her father's experience with prostate cancer was published in the local newspaper…without her dad's knowledge. "Well, my dad wanted to keep it hush, hush at the time, but now he's open about it. He feels, 'If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.'"

"I'm urging men to go in and get checked," said Hampson. "Look at me. I was only 55."

The biggest surprise to the elder Hampson was how much his daughter feared losing her father: "I didn't have any idea just how frightened she was until I read that article." And he still can't read it without tears coming to his eyes. Stacee closed her essay with an expression that illustrates how much her father means to her.

"The saying goes, 'To the world you may be no one, but to someone you may be the world.' My dad is my world and I, for one, am proud of him for extending his line."