Today I reached two milestones, and thought I'd share those milestones with the HW family and give a general recap and status update of my PCa, continence and ED.
Milestone #1: Today is the 2 year anniversary of my diagnosis of Prostate Cancer G3+4 at age 41. (The following day I made my
first post on HW, introducing myself.)
My
RALP surgery was
successful 20 months ago, G4+3, negative margins and nerves spared. Within a short time I was 99.5% continent. Today, my only residual leaking is a drip or two sometimes when I take the first few steps away from the toilet after urinating. The drips are so rare and minimal that no pads are needed. My
PSA results have been 0.00 or 0.01 since surgery. I'm scheduled to have my 20-month blood-draw later this week.
ED was managed with injections and pills. At 17 months post-surgery, I had a sudden improvement, and today I get somewhat usable (6 out of 10) erections naturally and quite good (8-9 out of 10) erections with Viagra. Dr. Mulhall tells me that most guys see this improvement at 18-24 months after surgery, so I'm a bit ahead of the curve on ED recovery.
Once I started injections 11 weeks after surgery, I found that the shape of willy had changed slightly and some bumps had formed deep in the tissue. Dr. Mulhall diagnosed me with
Peyronie's disease. Fortunately, the scar tissue is symmetrical in my case, so I don't have any curvature. Even so, I lost a full inch of erect length and a noticeable amount of girth. 3 months of extensive use of a traction device didn't help. Fortunately, my wife and I are "ok" with the situation since it doesn't interfere with intimacy, and Dr. Mulhall says that the Peyronie's is stable and shouldn't get worse in the future.
My ability to achieve climax and intensity of climax have diminished greatly since the surgery. This is my only true disappointment in my PCa journey. But, I keep things in perspective: In a sense, I traded away some erect size and climax pleasure in return for being cancer-free. All things considered, I'd say that is a pretty good "deal". Dr. Mulhall believes that ability to achieve climax easily will return with time.
Overall, I am extremely satisfied with the outcome of my PCa treatment.
Milestone #2: This is my 1,000th post on HW. This forum was an invaluable source of information and support from my diagnosis through recovery from surgery. It would have been vastly more difficult navigate my PCa without everyone here. You all have my eternal thanks.
-Gedman