Husband just diagnosed; wife is scared!

Mimi,

Thanks for find us in the Chatroom, and then coming back here to start your own thread. You and your husband are most welcomed to joibann our little corner of the world. There are many fine men and women that post here.

Please keep us well posted on your husbands journey and progress, and feel free to ask all the questions you want. We are here to help you along the way.

Thanks again,

David in SC

Hello Mimi, welcome to the place nobody wants to be..This will be just another bump in the road. Get a copy of Dr. Patrick Walsh's "Surviving Prostate Cancer" and get your husband and yourself up to speed on the battle you are facing. You have many options and plenty of time to make a decision about treatment. Give us a PSA number and the group here can bat a few things around and help you keep your treatment team honest..

Again, welcome to the board...

Mimi
Welcome to the club that hates to get new members. First -- take a deep breath, cancer is a very frightening thing but PC is not nearly as frightening. The chance that your husband will die from prostate cancer is still well under 10% (I think the latest statistics say 5%) Given your husband's low Gleason number there is plenty of time to learn and there are many good choices for treatment. You might want to look at the permanent links at the top of the topics list. There are many good sources of information and you may want to get one of the recommended books.

Everyone here has had that "hit up the side of the head" feeling that comes with a diagnosis and there is a strong recognition that, for a couple, it is not HIS cancer but OUR cancer. You will find both men and women her who will stand with you and support you.

For right now, slow down and learn about the options. Ask questions. Share feelings. Also try to remember that cancer does not define your whole life together -- relax, find joy in what you do together.

Hi Mimi, I echo those who have said welcome, but sorry you need to be here.

A well respected U.S. urologist/oncologist once told me he thought there should be some other name for Gleason 6 than cancer. It was cancer, but it wasn't a nasty cancer. If your husband really is 6 --- and you need to get a second pathologist's opinion to confirm this --- then, even if you never did anything about the cancer there's a reasonable chance he'd die with it, from something else, at a ripe old age. Treat it (surgery, seeds, radiation, HIFU, etc.) and the odds are huge that it will never bother him again.

Geezer said there was only a five to ten percent chance with his stats he'd die of it. And if he does, it will be a long long time in the future. As stressful as it is to have a 5/10 % chance of dying of this cancer, at his age of 62 I make so bold as to suggest that what should really worry you isn't this cancer you know about --- it's the cancer, the coronary artery disease, the Alzheimer's, etc. you don't know about. And, speaking of Alzheimer's, as I understand it, in 10 years he's got more than a 10% risk of having some dementia. Now that's scary! (Note: I may have the numbers wrong as this comes from a pamphlet delivered to the house as part of a fund raising drive, not exactly a peer reviewed study.)

Point I'm trying to make isn't to minimize the risk, and the issues, you and he face from PCa ---- it's that when you get the diagnosis you focus on the PCa to the exclusion of all the other risks to life that just being in your sixties presents.

Put into perspective, the PCa risk, if indeed a second pathologist confirms Gleason 6, isn't something you need to put the hospital onto speed dial for right now.

The issues are A) What really is the situation? (second opinion) B) Will he treat, or do a watchful waiting program? and C) If he elects to treat, which treatment will he do?

As others have noted the wives, daughters and PCa guys here are always available to help.


Sheldon AKA Sleepless

Mimi, I was in your position 2 1/2 years ago when the urologist called to tell us that my husband had prostate cancer. Yes, hearing the word "cancer" scares the crap out of you...that's a natural first reaction. The one thing that you will learn with PCa is that there is no "one size fits all" modality. Each and every situation is based on many factors and there's just no way to know the exact nature of the disease before treatment. A biopsy is a guess at best of what is going on inside.

With your husband's initial statistics, it would appear that he has options for treatment. A bit more information - PSA at biopsy and for 3 years prior (to see what kind of velocity we're talking about) would help. If you do not yet have it, make sure you get a copy of the path report from the biopsy...that will give you more information than just a Gleason score and % involvement. Things to look for are number of cores taken, % of cancer in each positive core, whether or not perineural invasion was identified, etc. In our case, the urologist drew us a diagram of John's prostate and used an X to indicate where he took the samples. Since one of them was very close to the edge of the gland, the surgeon knew before going in that he would have to cut a wider than necessary margin of tissue around that area.

What part of the country do you live in? Are you near or in a large city with access to a major hospital/cancer center? Since it doesn't appear that your husband needs to make a treatment decision right away (and I stress the word "appear"), you likely have time to meet with doctors in different specialities to decide what treatment could work best for him. I say "appear" because your post states that your husband's cancer is intermediate which usually means a Gleason score of 7 (either 3+4 or 4+3). That's why you need a copy of the biopsy report as you can have different Gleason scores for the positive samples but the highest Gleason score is the one that counts.

Stay with us Mimi ... we'll get you through this.

Dear forum friends:

Thank you for the kind welcome. I was not expecting so many messages.

I bought the Walsh book when my husband's PSA was high, back in January, and he's been reading it. The diagnosis we got was a second opinion as the first (after two biopsies) showed pre-cancerous cells.

Even though we were a little prepared, I am still in shock. Much of my personal time is spend trying to help my mother with her Alzheimers and another condition, and I was already drained from the weekend. Once things balance out a bit, perhaps it will all fall into perspective.

Thank you for your words of reassurance and advice. I feel better already, and constantly amazed and delighted at the kindness and caring of people.

We live in Northern Wisconsin. Green Bay an hour away. I don't have too much faith in the local health care system.

Thank you all,

Mimi

Hi Mimi,

Welcome and sorry that you have to join our club. I ,too, am the wife of a pc patient who hasn't had treatment yet. You'll get lots of great advice and caring people on this forum. Though I don't post much I do drop by here everyday too read the posts-it helps me feel connectede to other people going thru the same thing.

Renee

When my father broke his leg he had it set in Northern Wisconsin and things turned out fine, but when he was diagnosed with PC he went to Milwaukee for treatment. So I would agree with you that for PCa local might not be best. You are also within range of the Mayo Clinic -- perhaps that is more high powered than you need, but worth checking out since you will find a concentration of specialists there.

By the way, my father broke his leg by falling off a bar stool -- he was changing a light bulb at the time but within the family, the re-telling sort of dropped that detail.

Hi Mimi,

A hearty welcome to you and hubby

We're sorry for what you're going through, but so glad you're here !

This is a great forum full of caring folks who aim to support each other, and now you're making it a larger team. Thank you.

And, thank you for being such a good support to your husband.

Keep asking questions and learning !

All the best,

Barry