Surviving In This Very Moment…

My Personal Battle with Prostate Cancer … And Life!

How I’m Doing…

Rather than have to read through tons of posts (as I continue to post the blog will naturally grow) I will post my current state of health here. As things change, as they will from time to time, I will update this page.

Diagnosis
Stage P1c: Prostate cancer diagnosed by biopsy.
Bone and CAT scans show no metastatic cancer but because I have two replaced hips and a titanium back, there is a great deal of scatter in the CAT Scan seen in the groin that clouds this positive diagnosis. Along with the removal of the prostate itself, my urologist removed lymph nodes during surgery and biopsied them to make sure the tumor was contained within the prostate itself.

UPDATE POST SURGERY…

My prostate was removed using the DiVinci Robotic Surgical Technique. The prostate biopsy reported a 35% involvement of the prostate. The tumor had a Gleason Score of 4+4 (simplified as 8) making the tumor a very aggressive strain. Some of the tumor was reported to be near the margin of the prostate but had not yet reached the margin meaning that the tumor was completely contained in the gland itself. In addition, the biopsy of the lymph nodes was negative indicating that there was no metastasis. In short, at this very moment I am cancer free. This is the best possible news I could receive under the circumstances.

Prognosis
At this time my prognosis is quite good. The surgery was apparently a “cure” with something like a 15% mortality over ten years. Having apparently caught the cancer quite early I can look forward to being cancer free for some time to come.

I am prepared for the two potential side effects of the removal of my prostate surgically: incontinence and impotency however, I cannot predict how I’ll respond to either at this moment. Time will tell.

Update

Currently I have both side effects deriving from robotic radical prostatectomy. Both the inconvenience of some degree of incontinence requiring me to wear adult diapers and erectile dysfunction are present. I see my urologist on the 27th and will ask about the prognosis for both of these side effects. The truth is that even if they don’t go away, I appear to have caught this cancer in its early stages and I am alive. Minor inconveniences are a worthwhile trade-off for extended life.

My post-op PSA was measured at 0.06, far better than expected. While there is still room for a recurrence of the disease, the prognosis is the very best I could have hoped for.