Just had my first biopsy

Is it premature to post at this stage? Not sure, it if is, please let me know.

I mean, I don’t have a diagnosis yet, but I’m expecting to get one in a few days. I just turned 53, my PSA was 8.3, my K4 score was 24 percent and my MRI showed a lesion on the left side, 4/5 score, but with no sign of metastasis.

So, my expectation is for a positive but very treatable diagnosis.

So I’m not so worried about surviving so much, but quality of life. My wife is only 39 and we are pretty sexually active. She is very supportive and has said things like, “We’ll make it work,” etc. but I have not really been ready to hear that—I need to know what I’m dealing with, and what to expect and what my options and likely outcomes are before I’m ready to think about “making it work” in general terms.

One issue here is the protracted nature of my testing process. PSA was flagged in November, visit with urologist (during which he said he thought he felt something in the right side—now obviously a false reading) was in December, and MRI and 4K happened in early January but I didn’t get results until two weeks later—longer than promised and frustrating. For this and a couple of other reasons, I decided to move to UCLA because their prostate treatment center is well regarded. But I’m on an HMO and so had to not only wait till February 1 to switch but also see a new PCP first. Fortunately I was able to do that via video chat early in the month and she was able to get me set up with a visit to my urologist—the head of the center, no less—in short order, I was able to get a biopsy appointment in March 4, which was great, but then when I got there, they had moved my appointment without notifying me. There went a day of PTO and $14 parking.

Fortunately they had an opening last Thursday, but I guess the issue is that it has now been three months since the original urologist “felt something” and the dribs and drabs of info that have been coming in only seem to confirm the likelihood of cancer. And yet with no diagnosis and treatment plan, I’ve been in limbo and it’s been hard. Hopefully I will know one way or the other next week.

Another issue is that my daughter was diagnosed with leukemia at age 3.5 in early 2018. She completed treatment in June of 2020, which is great, but it seems like for the past three years our lives have been on hold—first her diagnosis and treatment, then Covid lockdown, and six months after the end of her treatment, the initial fear that I might have prostate cancer. Am I facing years of more feeling like our lives are on hold? Is this my new normal?

Post Edited (goldwax) : 3/13/2021 1:33:04 PM (GMT-7)

Goldwax, welcome to the forum. Going through treatment with your daughter had to be super difficult, and i can see why that would make your POSSIBLE prostate cancer diagnosis a challenge to deal wtih. For now, just put one foot in front of the other and go day to day, until the results are in. The waiting game is really a b!tch to deal with, so i know thats easy to say but do your best, there is nothing more to do until you get results.
As far as the long slog getting to this point, thats frustrating too, but in most cases, unless you get a diagnosis of a very aggressive cancer, which most Prostate Cancers are not, 3 months is not a long time in Prostate Cancer world. That sounds counter intuitive, but PC grows very slowly. Even more aggressive types.

Let us know the results, if you get a diagnosis we can help you where you need it, to make the right decisions. But here's hoping you are just passing through and wont need to be here much longer with a diagnosis of no cancer.
Good luck

Not too soon at all, hoist the mast and let er rip.
The first one might feel a bit weird, but not to worry, its normal. Just be ready for a bloody mess. All normal stuff to be expected.

Mine was pretty nasty looking and lasted for a while. Urine and poop was fine after a couple days but the semen was gory. I told my wife that she might not be interested in the mess until it clears up. She thanked me for thinking of her and went back to reading. We are a little older.

Goldwax....welcome and glad you found us. You’re doing all the right stuff. Knowledge is power and that’s the best way to deal with most of what life throws at us. If a PCa diagnosis is in your future one thing for sure is one size fits none with this disease. Each of our situations is unique and a choice of treatment must be based on what’s important for our particular situation. The challenge becomes in trying to sort through all of the treatment options. It can be a bit overwhelming at first but you seem up to the task. I remember having about six weeks from the time I got a brief phone call from my urologist regarding having a positive biopsy until we had our first opportunity for my wife and I to sit down with him to discuss treatments. I used that six week time period to attempt to prepare myself for that first sit down. In hindsight those six weeks proved to be a blessing and forums like this one gave us a whole list of questions to ask regarding treatment options. In the end we felt very comfortable in a treatment choice that was best for our circumstances. Knowledge is power and brings comfort when and if a treatment choice becomes necessary. Keep asking questions, learning and posting. We learn best from one another’s experiences.

goldwax,

A few things to consider.....

PC is slow growing. That is both a blessing and a curse. Your 3 month time span seems long...but it's unlikely to make a difference. I remember reading somewhere that the average time from when PC starts growing to typical diagnosis is measured in years. And the most common diagnosis is what we call Gleason 6--which some researchers today are saying is frequently indolent and won't do anything.

If you do get a positive diagnosis...get a copy of your full pathology report and post it here. We will help you interpret it. Consider this: At diagnosis, I was G6, and my diagnosis Urologist said I had 6 months to make a decision. And a legitimate decision at G6 is called active surveillance--which means you keep a close eye on it and if it shifts, deal with it then.

To echo another comment: I chose surgical treatment. I'm having my 6 year post surgery blood draw on Monday. I have every expectation of my PSA being non-detectable. I have no real side effects. I take 2.5 mg of cialis daily, and everything works just fine whenever needed.

Yeah, your semen will be nasty looking for a while. It will be reddish-black...and get blacker over time for the next few weeks. As long as you're both prepared for it...go for it.

Keep us posted, and we'll hope your report is a big nothing. Even if it's not, the resources are out there. Some time, let us know where you're located. Maybe someone here is local to you and can give you specifics about your local options.

Good thinking, the color of a really old tannic red wine is about what to expect.

Ten years ago, within the course of 18 months I lost my father, I was diagnosed with “dedifferentiated liposarcoma, high grade”, my mother began failing with dementia/alzheimers and my youngest son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

My sons diagnosis was the worst out of the pile. I got annoyed/upset if my kids had the sniffles. I cannot imagine a cancer diagnosis for a little one.

So yes sometimes the hits keep coming, and these incessant bureaucratic processes make it worse.

Be your own best advocate. Follow up continuously with whoever has the ball for the next step. Emails are lost. Voicemails are transcribed incorrectly. People just miss and communication is often poor. Covid makes all of this worse.

If at all possible try and get everything done under the same organization. Scans. Bloodwork. Everything. There are far fewer misses.

Hopefully the biopsy is better than you are imagining, but if it is “bad” news, you will meet it head on.

Good advice, gents. Will do.

Hi goldwax and welcome to the Forum where no one wants to be!

If your biopsy comes back positive for PCa, we'll help you ask the right questions and get good information. Yes, all the waiting can be frustrating, but we all learn to deal with it, even after treatment. Right now you are at the top of the decision tree, waiting to learn whether (a) your biopsy found no prostate cancer; (b) your have low-risk PCa that may let you choose between treatment and just monitoring (active surveillance; or (c) you have more serious PCa that makes treatment necessary.

Note, unfortunately, that outcome (a) isn't "you don't have prostate cancer," because biopsies do miss existing cancer. So although it may not be ruled in, it isn't exactly ruled out either. The remedy for that is repeated testing in the future (PSA monitoring and other blood tests, DREs, imaging, biopsies) as necessary.

Yes, it's a crummy disease in this regard, but we do have to be thankful that we have these diagnostic tools. The biggest weapon in the arsenal for fighting PCa is early diagnosis because it means that clinically significant disease can be treated early as well. I say this because in the happy event your biopsy is negative, you shouldn't take it as a reason to disappear for years from your uro's radar screen; rather, you will still need to be monitored.

Here's to a great biopsy report!

Djin

Hi, everyone. So unexpectedly great news: the results came back negative.

I do have to go in every six months to get my PSA levels checked, but otherwise it seems that I have dodged a massive bullet for now.

I am still not sure how I can have a lesion and have such a high 4K score and still be in the clear, but I guess it’s just one of those things. My mom is a former RN and she said that lesions can sometimes turn cancerous over time, which is probably why they want to keep tabs on me.

Anyway, I wanted to thank everyone for all of your support and great advice. I have some sense of what many of you are going through, based on the initial test results I had and my feeling that I was overwhelmingly likely to have developed PCa, not to mention undergoing the biopsy and its aftereffects, which brought a vivid physicality to the proceedings and made it seem even more real and scary.

Thanks again, and I wish the absolute best for everyone. Life can be hard enough without something like cancer to deal with.

Congratulations! And I'm actually not completely surprised--I have seen a lot of guys here with suspicious MRIs that have negative biopsies. Keep in mind all it shows is suspicion, which is why you have the biopsy.

But do stay on top of this--I had a negative biopsy, which I treated like a get out of jail free card and I didn't pay any attention to my PSA for several years. Six years later, I received my diagnosis. Don't obsess or anything, just stay on top of it. Sounds like you should finish the other half of the bottle of wine tonight!

goldwax - good to hear your biopsy was negative, enjoy it and stay vigilant. There are lots of stories around here, like Michael above, about biopsies missing PCa or PCa developing at a later time so you will want to stay after the testing and visits with the urologist until you are too old to worry about it anymore. Don’t be a stranger and check in every once in while.