Hello again
Having received such great responses to my thread after I was diagnosed with PCa and continuing to follow the wonderful comments made on this Forum, I thought I should share what I have done and where I am going. I intereviewed with some of the best Robotic surgeons (Tewari, Patel and Lee) as well as surgeons who did both open and robotic. I also met with radiologists. For some reason I just have never been comfortable with any form of radiation from the very beginning of this journey - but I tried to keep an open mind. And while I was convinced I wanted to go robotic - a surgeon from Hopkins who does both open and robotic suggested to me that open may be better and was less invasive - which confused me at the moment. Both my uroolgist and well as two friends who are urologists and were diagnosed 9 years ago with PCa ( they both had open surgery which 9 years ago was the preferred method of surgery) were of opinion that robotic surgery was the way to go. I was very forunate to be able to speak with others who had surgery performed by the surgeons I was considering - which was of tremendous help. I finally decided over Labor Day weekend to have Robotic with David Lee from Penn. My surgery is scheduled for Oct 22. It was a tough decision since Tewari and Patel were great. My decision was based among other things on fact I am from Philly and I can spend my time recovering the next day at home and most importantly I have a great surgeon in my own town. One of the things that impressed me about Lee was fact he told me immediatley that I had two equally good choices to survive PCa - both surgery and radiation. He even helped me arrange for appointment with radiologist. He was not trying to push me toward Surgery - an approach that I appreciated. Although I thought with this decison behind me that I could relax for a while, as I read posts from Forums other than Healing Well, I began to worry and wonder about my decision to have surgery -there were those who advocate seeds and others that surgery is just not the best way to beat PCa - in fact there is a book written by a doctor on this subject - he trashes surgery as a good alternative for treating PCa when compared to radiation and even watchful waiting for those whose condition is like mine. For a while it was unsettling to me. I am past all of that - my decison will not change and I am most comfortable with it - which is reason I am now sharing my thoughts and thanks with all of you.
I apologize for such a long post, I only hope it might be helpful to others going through same process now. The next step in this journey will certainly be interesting. Thanks for listening to me.
CPB