Newbie feeling lost & confused

Welcome to the club that no one wants to belong to. So glad your wife found this forum.

The few stats that you provide seem to indicate that your PCa is similar to mine.

Once I received my dx of PCa, I took my walking very seriously and walked very briskly for an hour each day. Walking is easy to do and really clears the mind, particularly if you are down in the dumps.

With walking and portion control, I lost 15 lb between the dx and my surgery which I believe really helped in my recovery.

First I had to decide on AS or an immediate treatment. You will find a good deal of debate about that here!

I think way too many surgeries are being done and that AS is, if recommended as an option by your doctor, certainly an option that should be considered seriously.  There is one caveat however and that is you have to get past the psychological barriers!!

With regard to myself, the question about AS was whether I could deal with the psychological pressure of letting the identified cancer stay in me when the opportunity to have the stuff I knew about removed was available. I knew that I personally could not deal with that so I chose not to follow the AS route.

After deciding not to go the AS route, I considered the other options.  My oncologist had outlined all of them.  His recommendation was that for my age and health, surgery was recommended.

I did extensive research.  Sometimes I thought my mind would explode with all of the information.  In the end, in my mind it came down simply to what I believed was the best option for me.  Removing the prostrate would give me the best chance of being cancer free.  Other options would still be available if some cancer reamained after surgery.

It was surgery first, then I'll look at other options if need be.

As for the type of surgery, my oncologist said that he could see better with DeVinci but with my situation he liked the fact that he could feel during surgery.

I elected open surgery. It was very important to me that I had total confidence in my doctor. I did not seek a lot of opinions because I was lucky enough to have one of the top oncologists in our country located in a hospital 15 minutes from home and after talking to him for 20 minutes, I knew this was the person I wanted to do my surgery.

From what I have read, I believe that at this time, it cannot be predicted that an individual will have better outcomes with one or the other surgery. To me each of these surgeries is very much an individual experience and you cannot rely on what happened to others to be an indicator of what will happen to you.

This post is way longer than I intended.   Today is a holiday for us (Family Day) in Ontario, Canada and I am not out doing my usual volunteer work.  I hear the family stirring so I had better end this.

Each individual's PCa journey is unique.  As Sonny said in an earlier post today, there will be bumps and flat tires during the journey.  Individual bumps and flat tires cannot be predicted ahead of time and so we make our decisions based on what we have learned and what we feel is best for us as individuals.

I hope that you will continue to post with us, let us know about the bumps and flat tires.  I also hope that you will find some comfort and useful information here.

Skeener

Hey Earlybird - glad you found us...

Have you been dealing with depression for longer then the last couple of years? If so - I'd think you'd want to get more control of that first. Then as you get stronger mentally you can wage the war against PC.

Hi Early Bierd,and welcome to the club.It is very normal to feel this way when your dr tell you you have pc,but their is not the end

thanks God your wife found us and in here you will find more information than most doctor can give you.In here you have any procedure that can be done,some positive and negative experince to that particular procedure and a lot of brother that are here to help you.when I was 46,pc hit me and did not find any forum only me and God,and here I am almost five years later and still psa=0.04.you will be find start doing home work and relax.

Early Bird, welcome ot the forum, not much I can add to what the guys have said, so find a chair and stay with us. Keep us informed of your decisions as you go along, and don't hesitate to ask questions. We got the biggest bunch of know-it-alls,,,,err....self educated guys around....

Earlybird,
Welcome to Healingwell. The first thing to take in that with a Gleason 6, PSA of 5.1, and if say, 2 of your 12 cores were positive with a small percentage of tumour in each core, you would be a candidate to do nothing other than active surveilance. I say this not as a suggestion as what you should do but rather to give you an indication that there is no need to panic and so take plenty of time to make a decision. If you elect to have active treatment there is surgery (open and robotic), external radiation, brachyatherapy, HIFU and Cryo (freezing) and probably a couple of others. Don't allow a doctor to tell you what treatment to have(although take on board any recommendations) ,especially if that is the type of treatment he does. Take your time, research all the options and learn all you can about the disease. You can and will become fairly knowledgeable about what you face and then and only then can you decide with confidence what is best for you. You could not go to a better place and find a group of more helpful guys (and some gals) who are all willing to help.
Bill

Welcome to HW,

Not much I can add, you have already been given some great general advice about your situation. At this point, is all about educate, educate, and educate.

Hope you continue to post, and ask any thing you want, anytime you want. We are here for you.

David in SC

Early Bird,

Welcome, and sorry to see you here. Be glad your dealing with this at 59. I had a radical prostatectomy back in October 2009, at the ripe old age of 49. What I wouldn't have given to not deal with this for another 10 years.

All the other guys here have great advice and YOU need to decide what works for you. I decided to do seeds and then after meeting with the surgeon, I was convinced that surgery made better sense for lots of reasons and in my case age was a big factor. I was too young to not do my best to eliminate the cancer completely.

My urologist insisted I see a radiation specialist so I could make an informed decision. I had made up my mind to have the surgery but the urologist had a point. Why not listen to the other guys sales pitch so to speak. So for the cost of a $20 co-pay off I went to see a highly recommended specialist and not only was he AWESOME, but he gave me great advice too.

I asked the doctor "What would you do if you were me?" He replied "Mike that is really an unfair question. I'm older than you, I'm not married to your wife. I didn't raise your children, I don't have your mortgage and so on and so forth." He went to tell my that surgeons want to cut and the radiation guys want to do radiation. He told me he felt confident that I was an excellent candidate for his services and that he would do a combination of seeds and external beam radiation.

To this point I felt he was honest and objective but still felt surgery was the right thing for me and I remained unchanged in my thinking and then came the big payoff for my $20. He said: "Mike - I'm totally confident I can give you an excellent result and I'd be happy to take you on as a patient if you'd like to move forward with me", and then came the but............
He continued "but....... if I were you I'd have the surgery".

How honest and refreshing and wonderful to get an endorsement of my decision from a guy who in the end would see no benefit or financial gain from his excellent advice. Coincidently my dad, 25 years my senior, was diagnosed with PC the week before me and I said "Dad you gotta meet this guy" He was a straight shooter and in the end my dad did follow his protocol, but dad is older and has different issue than I do.

End of day every one of us is different and you need to consult with the best doctors you can find and if your lucky you'll find guys like I did. The folks here on the HW forum are also an excellent resource. In the end my surgeon who does robotic surgery preferred a traditional laparoscopic approach over the robot for my set of circumstances. I trusted the surgeon and after that I want him to use the tools he's most comfortable with. I picked the surgeon, after that I let him pick the tools.

14 weeks post up I'm 95% or more back to where I was with only the most mild ED that I'm told could take months for the nerves to recover and for me to return to the way I was. For now, a quarter of a viagra and I'm good as new until the time I look forward to not needing it anymore.

Best of luck and e-mail me directly if you'd like to talk more. We all get thru this.

Mike