When you are first diagnosed with cancer, when the doctor says to you have cancer, you are likely to have many different responses. Among these first possible responses are fear, apprehension, disbelief, sadness, anger, dread, or even denial. Any and all of these reactions are reasonable and normal.

The question is how do you chose to deal with these feelings?  

Everyone's cancer is different and how we as individuals deal with our cancer is also different. However, developing a specific mindset, taking personal responsibility for yourself and your medical care, learning about your disease and  deciding on how you are going to come to grips with your reality will immediately influence you today and tomorrow. 

We all have choices to make, the choice we eventually make will have repercussions from today until the day we die.  Making better choices is hard, but so much of our future is dependent on the choices and decisions we make from today and on. 

In this podcast, Joel Nowak shares some lessons he has learned about being diagnosed with cancer.  Joel has been told he has cancer on six different occasions.  He has been diagnosed with 5 different cancers (thyroid, renal (kidney), melanoma, prostate and appendiceal (appendix cancer) as well as a prostate cancer recurrence five years after his primary treatment. 

Cancer ABCs would like to thank its podcast sponsors for their support of this podcast program.  Our sponsors include:

• Myovant/Pfizer
• Foundation Medicine
• Bayer 
• Dendreon