Newby Checking In

Hi everyone, I've been lurking here for a couple of weeks since my PCa Dx. Quite a sobering experience isn't it? A real emotional rollercoaster. Thankfully I've been very busy at work & haven't had time during the day to dwell on it. Evenings are spent finding all I can on the net. I can't thank all of you enough for sharing your experiences. It's helped tremenduosly thus far. I'm leaning towards DaVinci LRP for my solution & am meeting with the surgeon on Monday PM but have made no final decision. I've got my list of questions & we'll see what he has to say. Thanks again all.

Uncle Harley,
Welcome and great first post. I am sorry you are here, but we have an excellent group here to help. I am going to do my biweekly posts that have important information for new members. You may have seen my questions for doctors link, but if not, it will be up tonight. You may want to visit the site and print them for your next doctors visits. You numbers look good for great results. I suggest you take your time and learn all the modalities and remember you are the captain of this ship. Please make yourself at home and meet our great team...

Peace,

Tony

Believe it or not, there's actually some good fly fishing (trout) here in western SC, you have the Chattoga River, more famous for being filmed in the movie Deliverence, and the lesser known Eastatoe River, near where I live. Use to do a lot of here, until my knees couldn't take the rocks and cold water anymore. Fly fishing is definitely an art form to me.

David in SC

I agree with Selmer... Whoa!!!! Slow down.


I tell everyone new here to take your time and learn the treatment options available, their side effects and the impact of all this on your lifestyle and family. There is no need to rush and remember there are no do overs. Knowledge is empowerment. Urologists will near always recommend surgery, that's what they do. While radiologists will near always recommend radiation. Please take that into account. Do get other opinions from other doctors. There's much to take into account. For example I first was leaning towards robotic surgery, then brachytherapy radiation. Finally I rejected both and went with a new clinical research study I'm very happy with and it had minimal effect on me and my life. But first and foremost DON"T RUSH TO CHOOSE A TREATMENT!!!!

When everything you soon will learn becomes overwhelming I suggest you take a week off away from all of it. Later when you decide take a few days off to reflect before making the final decision. Then once you do don't look back.

Also ditto to Selmer and Real Ziggy and others, very knowledgable on PCa, in my humble opinion. Your current parameters would make alot of PCa patients like to trade their stats, for yours. Assessment is the key with PCa, some patients are overtreated or treated perhaps too soon and others are undertreated and not using as big of an arsenal as they maybe they should be, not because I say so, but because books and support groups(Ustoo) and like(PCa) & PCRI-conferences with panel of experts say so and they have had tons of cases over the years that they have seen and had many patients with various scenarios and levels of PCa.

Hey even watchful-waiting (monitoring) is for real (don't know all your parameters so might not be the best for you), let's call it conservative management or such. You go to your doc fairly often in this phase and keep track of psa's- history-velocity-doubling times (if they exist even within small numbers), blood tests (looking for specialize markers-onco/doc rule in this world), and other monitoring. You can read about it on www.yananow.net or www.hypertext.org

My brother was diagnosed with very similar to what you just listed he had <5% found in 1 of 12 biopsies and Gleason 3+3=6 and psa was 1.1 and this was 4-5 yrs. ago now, he gets psa tests monitored and so far has been consistently less than the 1.1, he changed diet some although he had a conservative diet to begin with, he is older than myself and is currently 65. He may have to look at possible treatment scenario, but thus far it appears he is most likely to be safe (no guarantee though,his decisions), usually if the Gleason 3+3 is correct and PCa found volume is less than <5%....John Hopkins Hosp. has called this 'indolent PCa or insiginificant PCa', their definition not mine.

Knowledge is power, words from some of the wisest docs on overall PCa conditions- 'assessment on parameters of a patients disease' is the most important factor in PCa.

Anyway you get to analyze and decide what is right for you is the gist of the matter, highly suggest you get second opinion(s) before committing to any major modality for perhaps any medical condition, if and/or when that happens to be the actual case. I did mention my brothers w.waiting for a reason.

I agree with you, Uncle, you never said you decided on anything, you said you were"leaning", I respect that. There are many here, myself included, that never suspected a thing, some have real low psa, some never had fast climbing psa, lots never had anything unusual with the DRE, in fact, like myself, other than a fast rising PSA, never felt anything or had any other prostate problem sympton. I am glad you have a dr. that is knowledgable enough and cares enough to have you checked at this point. With your posted stats, you look like you are in the real early, non agressive stage, and would give you both time and choices to make, that others didn't have due to the degree and agrerssiveness of their PC. We are here to spew advice and our experiences, its up to you, of course, to decide what is right for you, your body, and your cancer. We will support and encourage whatever decision you make. You are now a brother of the PC, along with the rest of us.

David in SC

I agree with Selmer on the 8 week gap to check PSA after a biopsy. Even a good firm DRE can make the numbers crazy, let alone a full blown biopsy.

Uncle Harley,
If your one core was less than 5% you have a good chance of having insigniificant cancer clusters and not a tumor. My Onco doc said these are very common and would probably never turn into a tumor and treating it with surgery would be like cutting off your arm because you had minor cut. It's funny that my uro oncologist surgeon never mentioned that to me when he recommended surgery. Surgery is a pretty serious step before you really know everything about your particular cancer.
JohnT

Hi Uncle Harley,
Sorry you had to join the club but you came to the right place! One thing to be aware of is that the biopsy results only show you what the minimum amount of disease is that you have, not the maximum or true amount, i.e. if you were to have the prostate removed and examined the final Gleason grade could be adjusted upwards. This is what happened to me, I started out with what appeared to be a fairly indolent appearing tumor that was upgraded substantially upon the final path report. If I had waited a year for definitive treatment based on what my biopsy alone said I may have ended up with a much different final pathology report than the one that I have now. So I guess that what I am saying is that just because you have a low grade biopsy don't assume that you have a low grade disease, it could be different. And if you decide to wait a significantly long period of time before treatment watch it very, very closely.
Best of luck with your research and decision-making!
Mark

Ditto again what Selmer said about waiting a good amount of time after the Biopsy in order to let it calm down again.
I had a blood panel test around 6 weeks after biopsy (another doc and it happened to include PSA/FreePSA). That showed the PSA had been knocked from 7.7 to over 10 -- confirming what Selmer and others have said about making your prostate angry and higher PSA levels.

David,

you got that right ... laffing my prostate off here ....

(HEY where did it go???!!)

jim

Welcome Uncle Harley, just sorry you had to join us but you came to a great place. From your stats you look like a good candidate for DaVinci surgery. Good luck in your meeting Monday.

Uncle Harley, good luck when you meet, and have that long list of written questions with you