My dad has been diagnosed today totally devastated

Hi Little Red
I think you have been told by everybody above that firstly you are not alone, we sometimes forget about the family and concentrate on the sufferer but all the family suffer, so please look around the site, there is so much support on here for both you and your Dad, and as already been stated, it seems they have diagnosed his PC at a very early stage so the options are numerous, and just remember the majority of PC sufferers dont even know they have the disease and i think its about 95% of men do not die of PC but of other conditions, or just plain old age.
For me this meant that if iwas to get any cancer then PC was probably the least likely to kill me. it is a very curable disease, so good luck to you and your Dad on this journey, but remember we are all here to help.
Good Luck
Tony

Understand how you feel, my husband was diagnosed 2 years ago, totally out the blue, and we were shell-shocked. But there is lots of hope and lots of support. When you say 'tumour on the left hand side' do you mean of the prostate itself? There is the specialist nurse phone service here , you might find that useful too.

My husband is doing really well after surgery and radiotherapy which he had access to as part of a clinical trial called 'RADICALS' - do ask about what clinical research is going on at the hospital or elsewhere that might be useful -a really important question but people may not think of it at the start.

Take several deep breaths, write everything down, read up ( great info here and on Macmillan site), ask ANY question you have - tell them your worries - no question or worry is silly. They will have heard it all before! Your Dr /twam will probably have one or more clinical nurse specialists( CNS) - they can be a lifeline - so do ask about that if you have not met that person yet.

Hi Little Red,

I'd echo what's been said above - this is a very friendly site, and we have all found it very helpful when we went through what you and your Dad are going through.

When I was diagnosed just over two years ago, telling my kids was actually the hardest thing I had to do: their grandfather and aunt had both died of cancer (not prostate cancer), and for them the instant reaction (which seems to be hard-wired into us) was 'having cancer means you're dying soon'.  In reality of course, things are very often quite different, and there's a very good chance that his life expectancy may not necessarily be any shorter than it would otherwise be.

Just give your Dad a lot of hugs, read what's on this site (there is loads of good information), and keep your pecker up: news like this always comes as a hell of a shock to everyone but the situation is almost certainly not as bleak as you might think.

Take care,