A big welcome to you and thank you for joining Prostate Paladin! 🎉Please welcome James, @James Andrews to our community. Prostate Paladin community is all about raising prostate awareness, sharing helpful information, and encouraging open conversations about prostate health. Whether you're here to learn for yourself, support a loved one, or simply understand the topic better, we're glad to have you here. Please check out the Start Here, Prostate 101 Post in the classroom and explore the resources in the there and join the conversations whenever you're ready. Every question, shared experience, and conversation can help someone feel more informed and supported. Let's give our new member a warm welcome in the comments! 👇 Thank you, Alex

Today is Veterans Day, and I've been thinking a lot about my dad. He was a veteran. And his service had consequences that followed him long after the war ended. My dad developed prostate cancer, which we understood to be connected to his exposure to Agent Orange. He was diagnosed at 65. His prostate was removed, and no additional treatment was recommended at the time. We trusted that was enough. But the cancer came back. With a vengeance. Only after it returned did we learn that radiation might have been an option worth discussing earlier. We'll never know whether it would have changed his outcome. My dad died at 73. That was about 25 years ago, and I still think about how little we knew. We didn't know what questions to ask. We didn't know what other options might exist. We didn't even know what we didn't know. And that's one of the hardest parts to look back on. We loved him. We wanted the best for him. We trusted the information we had. But I wish we'd known more. That's why I'm so grateful for what Alex is building here. Because education matters. Knowing what questions to ask matters. Having a place where people can share experiences, learn from one another, and feel comfortable asking questions they might otherwise keep to themselves matters. We can't change what happened to my dad. But perhaps sharing his story will help someone else ask a question they wouldn't have thought to ask. Alex, thank you for creating a place where those questions can be asked. And to the veterans here, thank you for your service. Some sacrifices don't become visible until years later.

A big welcome to you and thank you for joining Prostate Paladin! 🎉Please welcome David, @David Ecom to our community. This community is all about raising prostate awareness, sharing helpful information, and encouraging open conversations about prostate health. Whether you're here to learn for yourself, support a loved one, or simply understand the topic better, we're glad to have you here. Feel free to explore the resources in the Classroom and join the conversations whenever you're ready. Every question, shared experience, and conversation can help someone feel more informed and supported. Let's give our new member a warm welcome in the comments! 👇 Thank you, Alex

Prostate Basics starts today, and this is the thing I keep coming back to while I write it. I read a thread in September that I have not been able to put down. A woman wrote it about her husband, who is 55. He had a blood test. Then a scan. Then a letter arrived telling him the date of his biopsy. Nobody had given him the result of the blood test or the scan. The date was the first piece of information he was handed about his own body. Another man in the same thread said the same thing had happened to him. His words: "I did not get any feedback on my MRI, I was just told they wanted a biopsy so I was having one." His biopsy found no cancer. Sixteen years ago I would not have known that was odd. A friend told me in an airport that the problem I did not know I had was my prostate. I had no idea. I looked into it, made some small changes, got my PSA checked, and that was about it for years. There was almost nothing to read back then. What I know now is that the thing a man wants is not comfort. He wants a number and a clear path forward. Comfort fades on the drive home. A number he has read himself stays put. A plan tells him what to do with it. So here is my question for you this week, and I would like real answers, not polite ones. When you had a prostate test, did anyone give you the actual result and a forward plan? Or did you get "it is fine" and nothing else? https://www.skool.com/prostate-paladin-4886/about

Let me start the week with a confession. Sixteen years ago a friend at an airport told me I had a prostate issue. I had no idea. I could not have told you what a prostate was, never mind what it did. So today, the simplest question. What is it? It is a gland, that starts off about the size of a walnut. Only men have one. It makes fluid for semen. That is the whole introduction. No drama. Just another gland. The reason I start here is that almost every family I talk to skipped this step. They went straight from "something is wrong" to the scary words, with nothing in between. Here is your homework. Explain the prostate to someone at home in one sentence, using only what is in this post. Then come back and tell me how it went. Did they already know? https://www.skool.com/prostate-paladin-4886/about