Posted 10/12/2014 8:57 AM (GMT 0)
I'm in the gray!
Am 66 now and generally quite healthy and very active both physically and mentally—a college professor in Japan for the past 20 years plus teaching part time at a second university. Nine years ago I discovered that my PSA was a bit high--5.6 or so. Prostate was a bit enlarged so spent a month taking medicine to shrink it, which only reduced the PSA by 0.3 or so. Next step, biopsy, which showed some cancer cells in about 1/4 of the gland with a Gleason score of 3+3=6. T1 or T2, I don't recall.
At any rate, I scheduled brachytherapy for the summer of the following year. During that year, I read everything I could get ahold of on prostate cancer and changed my diet to eliminate sugar and drastically reduce the amount of meat and dairy goods I consumed. (Haven't eaten much meat for many years, anyway, as I prefer seafood, but I did eat a lot of cheese, a fair amount of butter, ice cream, and other sweets.) I read a book entitled "The China Study," by T. Colin Campbell about the largest study ever done on a human population regarding diet and its effect on cancer (in particular the “sex” cancers such as prostate cancer and breast cancer), plus ample lab experiments on the same. The connection between land-based animal protein consumption and those types of cancers became quite clear to me.
During that year, my PSA actually declined to 4.78 but then increase to 6.51 just prior to the brachy. After the surgery, I checked PSA every 6 months or so for 3 years, and each time it dropped until 3 years post-brachy, when it hit 0.59. Even though when I was first diagnosed with the cancer, I felt that I would never feel completely safe again, that PSA hitting so near to zero made me feel “home free,” so to speak.
Thereafter, I had no PSA checks for 5 years (even though my wife occasionally reminded me that I should get it checked). I finally did have it checked again just this past May (2014). It came in at about 7.30. Was concerned about metastasis so went to a nearby university hospital with a big Urology Dept and had MRI, CT scan, PET scan, ultra-sounds front and back, the finger check, and another PSA check. The PSA had climbed to 7.59 in only 2 months, but that didn’t worry me much as such a small increase in two separate checks so close together could be some natural variation due to testing conditions, my body condition, etc., I thought. All the scans showed absolutely no sign of tumors anywhere, so I decided to have another biopsy at the same hospital where I had the brachytherapy. Prior to that, another PSA check was done, and this time it had climbed to 8.39 in just one more month. I was quite worried then, thinking that whatever might be down there might be very aggressive.
However, the biopsy should no evidence at all of any cancer cells in the gland, much less any tumors. I was relieved at that but then thought about facing metastasis that already had a big start.
I posed the same question to both doctors, and neither of them could give me a satisfactory answer: If there indeed are PC cells out of the prostate in my body, and there is no sign of any in the prostate now, that means they would have had to escape before or at the latest very shortly after the brachy. And if that is the case, what the H have they been doing for the past 8-9 years? Cancer grows—that’s it’s very nature, so why did they lie dormant for all those years, even allowing a PSA to reach near-zero, then several years later, decide to become active again?
Thus, as it stands now several thousand dollars plus the unpleasantness of scans and the misery of a biopsy later, I know only 3 things: My PSA is a bit high and climbing, I have no detectable cancer in the prostate, and I have no detectable tumors (or pain) anywhere else in my body.
I wonder if any other participants in this forum have or have had similar experiences.