Husband possibly has PC....freaking out!

A biopsy is not the worst thing in the world, but it also won't be particularly fun for your husband either. And they have their own consequences, such as the risk of infection. Personally, I wouldn't be in a hurry to have one until all of the other possibilities are eliminated first. Halbert has excellent guidance in the post above.

Hi all...my husband went to the urologist today and he felt almost certain it was prostate cancer based on the dramatic jump in PSA levels in such a short period of time. He said he needs to have a biopsy ASAP and this is scheduled for early next week.

I know there is a long road ahead of us, and I'm sure we'll have lots of questions for you all. I wish I didn't need to come back here but I'm glad this forum is around, that's for sure.

JPenn, I'm reading your stats there and you certainly have been through a lot!! The doctor he is seeing is the same one who my dad saw and he tried to talk my dad out of having surgery because his cancer was such early stage and he was in his early 70's at the time. I think he's pretty conservative, which makes me even more worried because he seems to be very concerned about my husband. I'll just have to wait for the biopsy results and go from there.

Yes, I certainly will...am reading up on that whole Gleason thing but I'm finding it very confusing.

If his biopsy is positive for cancer and the Gleason turns out to be G-6, a small percentage in just one or two cores, I would have the pathology slides sent out to an expert lab for a second opinion..Treatment options will be based on this pathology report so you want to make sure the pathologist got it right.

Allison - I'm so sorry that you need to be here. However, as I'm sure you've discovered, this forum really is a great "base camp" for PCa info.

Did the Uro suggest getting an MRI first? That is often an initial step in the biopsy process so that MRI results can help guide the Uro to suspicious areas to target during the biopsy. Or if the MRI shows no evidence of cancer, there could be a plan B?

You are fortunate to be in the NYC area. Should you need them, great resources are readily available to you.

Since you are in the medical profession, can you pull some strings to get the biopsy results sooner? It's nerve wracking to wait for results. I shamelessly called in a favor and we had results in 4 days.

Take care.

Suz

Hi everyone, thanks again for the comments. I'm not sure if the urologist found anything on the DRE because he didn't say and my husband didn't ask. I'm actually quite annoyed at both of them regarding that to be honest. Our internist, who ordered the PSA in the first place said everything felt normal when he did the DRE. The urologist did not mention any other treatment than an immediate biopsy. I have no pull when it comes to getting the biopsy results back...I haven't been working in the hospital for years.

We had hoped to get everything, including surgery if needed, done by the end of the year because we have met our (ridiculously high) deductible but if it takes that long for biopsy results to come back, it looks like that won't happen.

Allison,
There are times to panic but this isn't yet one of them. There is still a good chance it's not prostate cancer, and even if it is, that it may not be much of a threat to his living to be shot by a jealous husband when he is 90. I was diagnosed with a fairly high risk PT3b prostate cancer at 56. I'm now almost 70 and was up on a ladder today cutting branches off a tree. The worst part of my day was a trip to the dentist. And that would have happened anyway, even if I'd never had prostate cancer.
Jim

The scheduled biopsy is a blind one...just the routine one they do in the office in 15 minutes. I am guessing that if the biopsy comes back negative, he'll redo the PSA in a while and maybe do a more definitive biopsy if the PSA is the same or higher. My only concern is that I don't want it metastasizing in the meantime.

Hi Allison,

Let me start by saying that I am not a savant on the matter nor a regular on this forum (this is actually my very first post here), but I wanted to say that I completely understand your panic! Perhaps my story can be of some help. I am 46 and my PSA was tested at 17 a few months ago, I had no indications of prostatitis except for some blood in my urine. I can tell you that I completely freaked out when I saw that figure! Even worse, when I went online I found that a PSA of 17 correlated with a high risk of cancer (>50%). In my mind I started planning my funeral (honestly!).

Unfortunately this was all before I could speak to a physician, I accidentally saw my PSA results on a Friday night when I logged in to my "medical portal", simply because I was curious to know if the results of my bloodwork from the day before were in. I did not suspect anything special as most of that was the same bloodwork that had been done a week before at another place and I did not know a test of my PSA had been included this time, so this truly came as a "surprise" - what followed was probably the worst weekend of my life.

When I finally spoke to my GP and my urologist they could explain to me that PSA is only part of the puzzle, that prostatitis can occur without any other symptoms, that is is fairly common, and certainly more common in young men than prostate cancer. Of course cancer cannot be ruled out, but I think your husband is relatively young as well. I was also told that the graph that showed the correlation between PSA value and the chance to have cancer that had depressed me so much was based on the "average man with a high PSA" - well that average man is perhaps 25 years older than me! I did not have previous PSA tests to compare with, I understand that the sudden rise is a reason for concern in your husbands case.

I asked about a biopsy but my urologist said she thought an infection was more likely and doing a biopsy on an infected prostate could make me very sick. So I was put on some (pretty brutal) antibiotics for 2 weeks first. Then I had to wait 2 agonizing months before a second PSA would show if that had been effective, yesterday I got the result, my PSA has dropped from 17,0 to 3,8 ! I will need some more testing to see if it goes down even further but this substantial drop was very reassuring that I am looking at prostatitis and not cancer. (I can imagine many stories similar to this one will not get posted on message boards like this as these will mostly attract people that do have cancer)

Now back to the fears, of course I hope your husband will not have cancer and I think a lot of wise things have been said above. But panic does not help you one bit in this situation, it will not let you make better decisions (probably worse) and it will make you feel miserable (for sure). But you probably already know this... I find it is only to a certain degree possible to stop worrying. I am a very rational person but fear is not rational. I have a panic disorder and over the years I adopted certain techniques that help me deal with fears and stress, the right mix of meditation, exercise, developing active thoughts against the (extreme / unrealistic) fear, distraction, escaping and tranquilizers. Pick what works best for you, also getting enough sleep makes things a lot easier for me on the fear-front.

Wishing you the best!

Allison101 said...
Thanks!! It's weird, I'm not sure why his urologist didn't say a word about it being a possible infection and immediately went to biopsy as the first thing to do.

That is not uncommon, and what my initial urologist immediately wished to do and I changed to a different urologist, have a multiparametric 3T MRI scheduled at Duke, which can then be used for a Fusion (targeted) biopsy afterwards.

I found healing well, and realized that 3Tmp MRI targeted biopsy would be more definitive. I also came to understand the benefits of going to a tertiary care center.

Allison,
His 2-ish PSA 5 years ago would have been pretty much normal for a man in his early 50s. Best wishes for good biopsy results. The waiting part is no fun.

Jim