Revisiting AS

John T said...
Questions;
Excellent advice to newcomers:
Trust your doctors and don't question them.
Take all of the advice, experience and information given on this forum and ignore it. Don't bother to check on the information given because your doctor has it all. He is up to date on all the latest treatments and staging technologies, and will not be at all biased by his area of expertise.
The only information we should provide to new comers is support in order to make them feel comfortable with this disease. Any information about alternatives should never be told to newcomers.
Why bother to get a 2nd opinion or seek additional information as it will only give you confused information and cause anxiety.
And most of all, ignore all the latest information; because if your doctor doesn't have it it doesn't exist.
Never give information about the latest studies and only include those that confirm your doctor's recommendations.
These are the proven keys to a successful outcome.
And lastly by all means always get treated because we know that 3% of us will die from this dreaded disease, and that is absolutely worth your sexual life and being incontinent. In fact we should all have our prostates removed at age 30 because we know that by the time we are 60 that the majority of us will have PC and the earlier we treat it the better off we will all be.
JohnT

Like I said much of this thread should be dated 2007. I guess when my original uro answered my question of how much time do I have if I do nothing with his answers of 7 years I should've never questioned it and hopped up on the gold standard OR table 48 days later, my bad.

*****Casey - maybe you're just cooler than everyone else. Or maybe not.

Feeling overwhelmed and scared is not a hysterical reaction to finding out you have cancer.

Those are perfectly logical, rational and human responses.***** --davidg

You made an excellent point up above, davidg. It is a very poor understanding of words when people try to force individual words into synonymous classification when they do not fit.

Being frightened is NOT being hysterical.
Being angry is NOT being hysterical.
Feeling crushed is NOT being hysterical.

In any case, if the moderators do not begin moderating -- so as to control the personal insults and personal sarcasm -- this forum is going to devolve into just another internet flame war site. I also belong to another prostate cancer forum and nothing like this seems to ever happen there.

We're supposed to be here just to offer advice and relate our experiences -- and then let the new patients absorb it all with a grain of salt. We're not here to call each other names & get angry when someone else offers opinions or thoughts that are different from ours.

To do something like that actually IS bordering on the word "hysterical."

Take care,
Chuck

Resident of Highland, Indiana just outside of Chicago, IL.
July 2011 local PSA lab reading 6.41 (from 4.1 in 2009). Mayo Clinic PSA Sept. 2011 was 5.7.
Local urologist DRE revealed significant BPH, but no lumps.
PCa Dx Aug. 2011 at age of 61.
Biopsy revealed adenocarcinoma in 3 of 20 cores (one 5%, two 20%). T2C.
Gleason score 3+3=6.
CT of abdomen, bone scan both negative.
DaVinci prostatectomy 11/1/11 at Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN), nerve sparing, age 62.
My surgeon was Dr. Matthew Tollefson, who I highly recommend.
Final pathology shows tumor confined to prostate.
5 lymph nodes, seminal vesicles, extraprostatic soft tissue all negative.
1.0 x 0.6 x 0.6 cm mass involving right posterior inferior,
right posterior apex & left mid posterior prostate.
Right posterior apex margin involved by tumor over a 0.2 cm length, doctor says this is insignificant.
Prostate 98.3 grams, tumor 2 grams. Prostate size 5.0 x 4.7 x 4.5 cm.
Catheter out in 7 days. No incontinence, occasional minor dripping.
Post-op exams 2/13/12, 9/10/12, PSA <0.1.
Semi-firm erections now happening 14 months post-op & slowly getting a bit stronger.