The Rancid Walnut

Author: R. Steven Heaps

ISBN 978-1-60264-994-1 (softcover)

278 pages

Written by a retired psychologist and ultramarathon runner, this book is a memoir, a source of information about prostate cancer, and a practical guide to the use of the latest tools from cognitive-behavioral psychology and therapeutic writing to live a fulfilling life regardless of one's health status. Despite an extremely active and healthy lifestyle, the author developed prostate cancer at age sixty-four. This book recounts his experiences dealing with this complex disease, while he continued to live an energetic life in the face of cardiac arrhythmias and surgery to repair a leaky mitral valve. As you travel along his medical journey of diagnosis, choosing a treatment, surgery, recovery, and follow-up and learn about causes and prevention of this challenging illness, the author provides an open window into an emotional world that most men experience, but which few men discuss. Critical issues of incontinence and erectile dysfunction are given the frank, honest attention they deserve. Self-deprecating and sometimes raunchy humor combines with unguardedly personal poetry to paint a picture of one man's determination to move forward no matter what cancer throws his way.