You have to get intellectual about your disease.

Technical writer Mike Wayda used all of his research skills to gather the information he needed to make good treatment choices. “You have to get intellectual about your disease,” he says.

Every cancer survivor creates a unique plan to beat back the disease. Some laugh their way back to health. Some rely on religious belief. When Mike Wayda was diagnosed with prostate cancer in September 1996, he went for the facts.

“Knowledge is the font of all human inspiration,” Wayda tells ACS News Today. “When my urologist told me I had prostate cancer, it was like a ten-ton hammer smashed me in the psyche. I was totally numb, non-functional for a while. Knowledge can drive out that fear.”

Knowledge can also give shape and form to the fears that cancer creates. For Wayda, cancer was a personal betrayal. At 57, he was active, in good physical health, didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, and didn’t even deny the possibility of prostate problems.

“I had regular PSA tests almost from the day they were approved,” he says. “And they were always normal. There were minor prostate infections periodically, but antibiotics always knocked them back. Suddenly, I discovered just what my prostate could do to me. I took it very personally.”

He also took it professionally. A long-time technical writer for the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute, part of the Federal Aviation Administration, Wayda went on autopilot. With two weeks between diagnosis and the first appointment with his surgeon, he turned research skills honed over years of medical writing to the Internet, medical journals, and every other cancer resource he could find.

He also found key resources in his wife, a nurse who had seen prostate cancer treatment first-hand, and Man to Man, the American Cancer Society (ACS) prostate cancer support group. All offered emotional support as well as practical information on treatment options and information sources. With their help, Wayda says he was able to turn anger and fear into action.

It’s a process that never ends. As a survivor, Wayda has stuck with Man to Man, counseling other cancer patients, coordinating local activities, and speaking about prostate cancer anywhere there are people to listen. He has also been active planning the Relay For Life every year since 1997 and helping organize golf tournament fundraisers. Whether it’s Wayda’s own disease, another patient’s personal battle, even basic research, it all comes back to fighting cancer with facts.

“You have to understand the process of your cancer and find the steps of action to fight back,” he says. “Too many people rely totally on their physician for information. They wait for a response that physicians just don’t have time to give. You have to find the facts for yourself.”

By the time Wayda saw his surgeon for the first time, he had a list of questions and a good idea of what the answers should be. Some of the questions were strictly medical: What are the treatment options? What are the possible complications and side effects? What is the incidence of impotence? Incontinence?

But some of the questions were highly personal: How many surgeries have you performed? What is your success rate? Can you support the treatment I choose?

By the time the questions were over, Wayda says, he was ready for a retropubic prostatectomy, a complex procedure that involves removing the prostate through an incision in the abdomen. Just as importantly, Wayda had become a key player on his own care team.

“You have to feel confident in the surgical team,” Wayda explains. “But the physician has to feel confident in the patient, too. Ask your physician those tough questions. He doesn’t want a guy who is scared to death, he wants a patient who understands what can happen, good and bad. If you want to beat cancer, you have to get your brain back and get intellectual about your disease. You can’t make a good treatment choice if you don’t have all the facts.”