Calling all pT3 Club or "The Horse Has Left The Barn Boys"

I haven't been around much, but you can add me to this club, too.

G 4+4=8 with tertiary 5, pt3a, +EPE, +LVI

SRT completed end of April, uPSA <.01, next one in Oct.

Rich

A little about my self regarding my PCa. Back in Jan 2009 I went for my first physical in years, all test came back good..? My Doc calls me in because my PSA was at 4 he said it's probably nothing but I would like you to see a Urologist . Well that was a quick visit a finger up my butt, hello to you too, he's says everything feels good nothing unusual, iam going to book you for a biopsy. A week later iam lying on a table with with the hacker from hell ,this man had no idea this was a person lying in front him. I my self had no real idea what a biopsy procedure was going to be like. My urologist give me a general idea, but he could have went into a bit more detail.

Whooooo big fellow what do you think you going to with that, he had in his hands this object that resembled a native war club a 12'' handle with a egg shaped ball on the end ..At that point the thoughts going through my head was where's the closes door. He promptly assured me it was nothing to worry about. Riiiiiight. With no pre warning he shoves this foot ball a little exaggerated but that's what felt like anyway. Up my but with no lube and instantly fires off this needle that felt like it was going to come out my belly button. When I complained about the new anus he just gave me he said nothing and kept on firiing away. After about the fifth shout I felt like I was going to lose my lunch, I said ok from this point on you are going to tell me when you are ready to pull the trigger. This seemed to work because. at least I new when it was coming .I found out later that they normally freeze your prostate and a bit of your bowl during this procedure, I guess he wasn't informed of this updated procedure . So it was a total of twelve needles and I was told results would be about a week. I have to say this was not a pleasant experience, when I arrived home a two hundred kilometer drive my anus felt like is was the size of a grapefruit . First thing I did was head to throne, and when I dropped my draws there was blood everywhere ,what the hell did he do to me ,at this point my head was swimming and anxiety levels were at max , just grate I was going to die a bleeding arse hole. Not knowing what to do I literally stuffed a three foot strip of TP up where the the sun don't shine. Jumped in my truck and drove down to our local bandaid shop we call a hospital. If you could of seen the look on the docs face when he started pulling this wad of toilet paper out of my ass it was priceless, it was like he was performing a magic trick and the nurses were his audience every ones face were blank they never seen any thing like it ,at that point I couldn't help my self and said for my next trick , they all cracked up I made their day. Well everything turned out ok it turns out I had a internal roid that blew a gasket and the doc said it would close up on its own. Well two weeks have passed since my little crisis and I got the dreaded call, the doctor would like to see you regarding the biopsy results. The first words out his mouth were you have cancer. I know he continued to speak but all I heard was cancer. All I could think of was how long do I have. I said how bad is it. He said I was lucky, lucky wadda mean lucky you just told me I had cancer hell wining the lottery is lucky.Ok let's back up I realize your feeling a little nervous he says. The cancer you have is a very small amount, out of the 12cores taken two came back positive with small volume. I thought that doesn't sound to bad . He said if you were my dad I would recommend brachytherapy. If you were my dad, I am only 54, dam hall out the shovel already what the hell is brachytherapy By this time I was starting to calm and the shell shock was starting to wear off . After he explained what brachytherapy was , I thought for a moment and asked how soon should I have this done. You have what is considered a slow growing cancer and have lots of time to think about it but in the mean time I want to set you up with a CT and a bone scan to see if there is Anything else we might have missed . Another anxiety filled couple of weeks went by.In the mean time I spent hours scouring the Internet reading up on prostate cancer .A diagnosis of Gleason 6 is supposed to be on average a really slow growing cancer and from what I was reading AS (active surveillance )seemed to be a logical way to go.So AS it was.
My PSA pre exam was 4.0 five years prior 3.5 not a big jump I figured no worries. Well I don't know if it was the result of having the BX, but my PSA started rising quickly every three months... 4.0 4.5 4.7 6.0 well this senareo tweaked my brain a bit. Still not wanting to rush in to any evasive treatment decided to try avordat, after reading about it from one of the PCa magazines that was laying around my uros office. Although my urologist was not 100 % onboard with this idea we decided to give it a shot.After all i was only a GL 6 right. Its going to take its good old time doing what it does best grow slowly ,.what the hell do I know. Well the Avodart worked..sort of..PSA droped from 6.8 to 3.0 all right. For the next 2 years psa would fluctuate between 3.5 and 6.0, January 2013 PSA jumped to 7.1, this is not how a GL 6 should be behaving decided its time to see the butcher with the war club again. This time I ended up with female Dr. Who actually regarded me as a patient and not a slab of meat laying on the table.She must of received the memo the last butcher didn't. The whole procedure was pain less, BX report came back 4+4=8 son of bxxxz same location and only 2 cores positive go figure. Well so much for AS. What I didn't know was avodart may lower you psa but it's not a true repacentation of the actual reading. According to my oncologist my PSA was 14. Regardless I immediately told my uro to git it out. Unfortunately surgery was a failure , post opp psa was .60.Psa remained at. 60 up to the the point when I started pre RT ADT.psa droped to <0.01in first month a nice response. Basically three monts post opp. IGRT was a walk in the park so I tought, first three weeks no problem week fore crap hit the fan, the diarrhea brutal, then came the bleeding and the burning ring of Fire. I think I spent 80% of my time sitting on the throne or in the tub soaking in a Sitz bath, didn't experience much fatigue at the time that came latter.my protocol was ADT RT and ADT for two years. I'm due to receive my last shot of zoladex in February 2015. It's been a long time coming, there were many times I had my self convinced to call it quits. The adrenal fatigue is debilitating, it takes everything I have just to go to work. It's been seven months since my shot of zoladex and iam still feel the fatigue, I can belive haw much muscle I lost. Hot flashes are still a bother, I also developed weard feeling in my legs since RT so my local doc put me on gabapentin it seem to help quite a bit, an intresting side effect it actually lessons my hot flashes . Currently I my PSA is back down to 0.01 from 0.03 two months a go.
Hang in there fellas , if at first you don't succeed hit with a bigger hammer.

Wilderness

LOL glad you enjoyed it,veno does it every time. If we cant laugh in life there's no life to live. Man I really gota take it easy on that stuff...nah. That was a stupid tought.
Hope your doing well.

Post Edited (gearloose) : 9/13/2015 12:25:59 AM (GMT-6)

IslandRefugee,

Welcome to Healing Well. I added you to the ever growing list of the "pT3 Club". If you have any questions, concerns, anixiety issues, success stories or you just want to vent, look for this thread and add to it. Someone or many will jump in and add their 2 cents worth.

Having PCa changes your life as you used to know it. All of us here have anxious moments dealing with it. Being a member of this group, we are somewhere in the middle. We don't have it too bad but we know the cancer had left the prostate. How far or how much, we don't know. Will it raise it's ugly head and cause us further treatment, hopefully not but time will tell.

Catholics are taught that there is a place called Purgatory which is somewhere between Heaven and Hell. That somewhat describes our situation we are living in.

Anyone else out there that wants to be added to out "Club", post your staging either pT3a or pT3b and your Gleason score and I will add you to our group.

Bill from Florida

Put me in, please.

Big Mac,

As much as I hate asking, please add me to the group.

rmh1949

Welcome aboard rmh1949!

I added you to the club, sorry you had to join us.
Like Mike said, looks like you are doing well.

Welcome to Healing Well and the "pT3 Club" Paul!

I see you are from Florida also. How is you pre-op health coming along so far? Looks like you are a little over 3 weeks out now. Keep walking as much as you can each day.

Your path report shows you were upgraded to a Gleason 4+4=8. I was upgraded from GL3+3=6 to GL3+4=7.
I showed 2 possible positive margins that my doctor wanted me to watch out for with PSA tests every 3 months for the first 3 years. I have just been told to have my test every 6 months now that I still show undetectable results.

ECE, as far as I understand, means that the tumor extended past the capsule but since you don't show positive margins, the surgeon wants keep a close watch on you. A pT3a means the tumor extended past the capsule, that is why you were graded that way.

I would have liked to have had a lower grading so I wouldn't have to continue to worry as much as we do in the pT3 Club but that was the cards dealt us all here.

Hopefully some of the other guys will join in and welcome you. I will added you to our membership here. Join in with any questions + concerns.


Bill from Florida

Doing very well, PSA of zero today. Yea! However the hot flashes this afternoon are driving me crazy!

Gotcha updated LSil!

Good luck with your Zero Club Membership staying valid.

Bill from Florida
Where the sun is shining and the surf is climbing!!!!

please add me to the group

question: do i have to be a citizen or in US to join the club???
regards