Date with a robot at age 56

Welcome to the forum and sorry you need to be talking to guys like us.

Sounds like a great plan to me. If you've got WorriedGuy on your side, nothing could be better.

Hang in there and keep us updated on your progress.

Andrew

Just had my date on Tuesday. On the mend now. It is abdominal surgery so you will be sore. I didn't expect the amount of gas there would be afterwards. It seems like I drink gallons of water each day. Walking is important so walk lots now and afterwards.
Hope your experience is as good as mine has been. Plenty of guys here that have gone there before to answer questions as they arise.

Good Luck,
Brian

leo -- has your doctor talked to you about adjuvant and/or salvage treatment (I see you are on casodex)? our numbers are similar except my PSA was 6.8 (big difference) and my surgeon did not want to operate. good luck to you and keep us in the loop.

ed

PDA said...
there has been pushback from surgeons who point out that the majority of the benefit seems to accrue to a subset of the high-risk surgeries and that most men can be spared the hormones.

I'm wondering what subset that might be. According to Table 3, all the subsets who received the long-term adjuvant ADT showed very little evidence of recurrence. However, in the SWOG S9921 study, all of the men in the study had to reach undetectable (at that time) PSA levels post surgery to be eligible. I wonder what the recurrence rate would have been if there were a placebo group who did not receive long-term ADT. (SWOG S9921 was designed to look at mitoxantrone chemo + ADT vs ADT alone after RP). The Japanese study had no control group. The randomized controlled trial we need, but don't have, is RP vs RP+ADT for high risk.

Since you shared this with me, I've been wondering if some of the benefit is due to cleaning up of cancer cells that were set loose by incision and seeding during surgery. Perhaps seeding of high grade cancer cells is a bigger factor than we imagine? We do have some evidence that positive margins and tumor incision due to attempted nerve-sparing are associated with higher recurrence rates. Is the ADT cleaning up the mess left behind after RP?

WELCOME Leo13 ! Best of luck with your decision.

Don

Hi Leo,

Good luck with your date with the robot. The problem is, you will not remember much of your actual time with her (the) robot. She will leave you with a little hangover and nothing much else if you are lucky. I am 3 weeks out and progress has been slow and steady and I am feeling really good. You will want to be sure you start stool softeners as soon as you can after surgery and drink and walk plenty. Careful with the catheter, it is a wicked teacher if you do not take care with it.

Best of luck with your surgery. Being a friend with WorriedGuy I know he gave you great advice. I certainly hope that we get to meet when I get to WorriedGuys house in September.

If you have questions feel free to ask.

Cajun Jeff

Good luck Leo! Most of us have gone before you and it is much easier than we thought. You will do fine.

If you are married, take advantage of it and moan, complain to let her feel sorry for you. Have her mow the grass for you and take out the garbage because eventually you will get those jobs back after you heal.

If in a year you are still leaking, Worried Guy can tell you all about the sling and how to measure urine in pads.

Bill from Florida

Leo,

2 weeks ago today I was in your position. Stool softener is a must. I was not told by Uro to continue taking stool softener and by Saturday I was not comfortable. It took 2 Docolax suppositories to get things moving again. I still take one oral Docolax daily but will be weening off them in the next few days if everything functions properly.

Cath was not too bad. Skip the leg bag unless you are going for a walk. I found that the big bag fits in a tote nicely and it will reduce the number of times you have to empty. Only see the hose dropping down from your shorts to the bag. It took about a week for my tip to recover from the cath. Movement irritated it near the end of the first week.

As my Uro told me, you are going to feel like a pine cone is between your legs. He was not kidding. It has reduced down to an acorn for me now. No longer taking Motrin for discomfort.

You will probably leak for a while. I bought plenty of Depends pads and briefs beforehand. I did keagles but apparently not enough but it will get better in time.

I have been able to have sex 2x since cath was removed. On 5mg of Cialis every-other-day. Not rock hard but still able to penetrate. When you feel up to it, make sure you put a absorbent pad under you. I have tried to void my bladder beforehand, but still some urine comes out. Reminds me of the first time having sex and climaxing before you get to the promised land. If your wife understands that this all may happen you can have a pleasurable experience. My wife and I talk often on how things are working now. Others here have different experiences. Don't put too much pressure on your self on how things should be. Let time be your friend.

Good luck with your recovery,

Brian

Greetings . It's great to be on the other side. Can't believe it's already been 2 1/2 weeks.

Man, what a date that was. about 6 hours on the operating table (in part due to a double hernia procedure following the prostate removal ....hey , I've got a high deductible plan and I figured what the heck and anyway the surgeons tag-teamed and used the same entry portals). Anyway, after an interesting conversation with the post-op nurses as I was coming out of the anesthesia, it was off to "the floor" for a few hours of constant interruptions and walks. Thanks to all for the warnings/advice about gas, bloating , and the power of walking and drinking water. Finally had to resort to shots of milk of magnesia and that did the trick. A dump never felt so good. Still taking a colace pill every day. For me, the Jackson Pratt drainage tube and bulb I had in me for 10 days after surgery was way more of a pain than the catheter. Real bad bladder spasms for many days, but the ditropan really helped. Applying lubrication on the tip of penis really helped with the irritation from the tube.

I am thrilled to say that following catheter removal (oh by the way, it was then that I learned that they put a little too much saline in the bulb, hence the intensity of the bladder spasms...thanks doc), I was able to urinate without much leakage (I was prepared by all the materials I was given to expect to gush like a fire hose). Guess I was just one of the lucky 20-30% on that one. I'm up more at night than pre-surgery, but hopefully that will improve with Kegels. Just wearing the "drips and dribbles" pad.

Taking Cialis (5mg) every other day and will start the pump in less than two weeks. Will see how that goes.

Leo
_________________________________________________________
56 years old, excellent health, DX'd by Dr. Jean Joseph 3/28/14
PSA 40
Biopsy showed tumor in 12 of 14 cores
Gleason 7 (3+3 10%, 3+4 60%, 3+3 35%, 3+4 80%, 3+4 70%, 3+4 90%)
T2c
CT, bone scan and MRI negative
No prior symptoms. DRE showed only some hardness on left side, no enlargement
DaVinci robotic radical prostatectomy performed on 5/21/14
Results of pathology and frozen section of perineural invasion of left base nerve bundle:
Prostatic adenocarcinoma type pT3a
Gleason Score : 3 + 4 = 7/10
Tumor quantity: 60-70% of examined tissue (20 of 22 slides)
Dominant tumor: 2.7 cm
Extraprostatic extension: Left base
Lympho-vascular invasion: Negative
Surgical margins:Negative
Seminal vesicle: Negative
Vas deferens: Negative
Nerve bundles: Right side spared/left side partially spared

Congrats!

Good to see you have a good post path report

All the best to your speedy recovery.

Oh yeah ... you are not done with the digital exams.