An update

My FIL has to decide between surgery or radiation. With one, he risks impotence. With the other, incontinence.

He seems to be in good spirits. He joked the whole time he was on the phone with dh. Yes, he spoke to dh even though he wanted to keep it quiet. I think now that he has some more information, he feels more comfortable telling the family.

I'm feeling a lot better about the situation, but I'm still shell-shocked. I've seen a lot of cancer in my family and I've never had anyone survive it. I know it's possible, but it's not anything I have any experience with. Even with dh, his paternal grandfather died of cancer. So survival is foreign to us. I'm looking forward to my FIL being the first.

Although, now this raises more questions and compels us to stand back and take a closer look at our lives and our lifestyle. From the research I've done, 5-10% of prostate cancer cases are hereditary. That comforted me until I found that having a close relative with it doubles my husband's risk. Should his brother or uncle (who has been estranged from the family for decades, so we wouldn't even have a way of knowing) develop it (G-d forbid), dh's risk increases to 5 times.

We're pretty healthy, but we can do more. Dh doesn't exercise at all and I have a penchant for eating out. We're going to have to evaluate things and come up with a concrete plan to be certain we live life in the healthiest way possible.