Any regrets?

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Your answer was spot on many on here haven't got the resources and some insurance don't cover so if I were a betting guy ( which I'm not) I would say that there are many factors as to why one choose one option over another
Thank you for bringing this up

This is actually a very interesting question, and in my view, some of the responses are getting to the bottom of it.

For me, I made what felt like the best decision I could for my life situation at the time. And, I've had a (so far) great outcome: my 2 year blood draw is coming up in a couple of weeks. As I say when asked, "all my parts work just fine, thank you".

Regret is an interesting thing. I guess my goal in life is to get to the point where I can say that in most of my life decisions...whether they turned out well or not....that I did the best I could do with the tools I had at the time. That's the path, for me, of no regrets. We all have to live with our own voices in our heads. I still remember what my elderly mother said when I told her I had the dx: "Don't do anything experimental." Which is why I went for tried and true. I watched what happened 20 years earlier when my dad went experimental with HIS PCa diagnosis.

Regret, in my view, is a choice. I can choose to regret, or I can get on with the business of living.

mjluke said...
NY-Sooner said...
I had surgery 7 years ago and I wish I had done the seed implant instead. I really miss my prostate. I was lucky enough to have no ED issues from my surgery and I can get rock solid erections at a drop of the hat, but I miss my orgasms. Oragsms now just are not as much fun as they were before when I had my prostate.


Hey Sooner:

I understand that for most men orgasms are actually stronger post- surgery.

Are you saying that you miss your ejaculate that much, that notwithstanding a successful , in fact enviable outcome ( "rock solid erections at the drop of the hat" ) that you wish you had chosen brachytherapy rather than surgery.

Interesting- but don't be too disappointed- ejaculate is substantially diminished, in most cases negligible post seed implant also-

You don't appear to appreciate how lucky you are.

They might be stronger for most men, but all pleasure is gone for me. Not just 100% impotence, but when some sort of fake erection has been achieved(pumps or injections), or orgasm achieved with no erection, there has either been greatly diminished pleasure or an actual unpleasant sensation sometimes. The last actual sexual pleasure was a few days before surgery 3 years ago. I realize things are OK sexually, though often after a long healing, for many men. But not for me. But at least I have not had Peyronie's or ER trips, as some have. I used to say at least I have not had shrinkage, but after so long with out an erection I almost certainly have, if I was to really look into it.

Can't believe no one's gone here:
Regrets, I've had a few;
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.

I planned each charted course;
Each careful step along the byway,
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

My only regret is not having annual PSAs at age 52, 53, and 54. Those few critical years may have allowed my case to develop undetected, but it would have only been noticeable by the trend. When detected my PSA was only 4.1, so not very high, arguably worth biopsy. Six months later, 5.2, but biopsy found a pretty high volume G9 5+4. I wasn't completely surprised the biopsy was positive, but I was floored at the severity. Shortly thereafter staged at cT3a by mpMRI, the news wasn't good.

From there, it was a short, intense, steady path of tests and decisions with which I ultimately was quite comfortable. The only real stress came from a fair degree of dissonance between things said on this forum and what my team of oncologists said. I was facing a distinctly discouraging case to begin with, and did what I concluded was the best at the time. If it goes south from here, I do not, will not, regret my treatment choices. I still believe that was the right path for me, especially with data and assessments available at the time, even if it doesn't turn out great.

There are still a lot of potential choices to make, well a few anyway, so the chance of future regrets is still there. I have a terrible habit of second guessing, and must consciously avoid it. My profession is driven by anticipating failure modes. If something fails, we have to dissect the failure and the decisions that led to it, learn from it, and do something better next time. That's the way engineering works. With our bodies, we don't get a second chance at this! My trained problem-solving/analysis processes don't work in a no-do-over situation!

This response is t dnmlt from February 2014.
I agree with you 100% and our cases are identical which greatly added to my regret of having RP at 51.
Since you had your surgery 3 years ahead of me, I would like to know a bit more how it turned out with menopausal wife?
MK

You guys must have too much time on your hands. Dragging up yet another Zombie thread.

I did what I did based on the information I had. Docs said I had no more than three years. I will have survived eight years in October. I love proving them wrong!

Being fairly new to PC, the stress I feel is about making a decision will regret. However, I like the many who said, we make the best decision with the info we have. As long as I do my research and make the decision with my wife, with my doc, I believe I can march forward. Regret and fear are the same coin, one is yesterday and one is tomorrow. None of us can predict the future or change the past. I wish those with regret peace today. Denis

...life is full of regrets.

There are many things that I wish I had done differently in my 72 years of living, but what's done is done. There's no use crying over spilled milk, as the saying goes. Do I wish there had been some way to deal with prostate cancer without ending up with sexual side effects? Of course. But, as they say, cancer sucks, and it always exacts a price. My wife and I were aware of the possible side effects, and we're OK with the outcome. Dwelling on what might have been is a colossal waste of time. Living a life of regret is just sad. There's so much more to life that I don't have time to worry a lot about the inability to get an erection. Not a big deal.

Post Edited (clocknut) : 9/6/2017 9:07:07 AM (GMT-6)

NKinney - My heart goes out to all you men who had unnecessary treatment.

Conversely, no regrets except my one regret is I can't seem to find a Doc who will treat me aggressively enough.
I recently changed to a MedOnc and he is a farsight better than my Uro was.
I don't know completely what it is, he is relatively young my guess is about 40ish.
But the only advanced imaging he seems familiar with is C11 Choline, well I don't qualify yet.
But as TallAllen has thankfully provided us with info on other PET scans, my MedOnc doesn't seem interested.
I just recently had a positive CT scan, admittedly it was just 1 very small met on my lung. The doc just wants to treat with casodex and lupron.
My question is, how about other more sensitive PET scans like the F18.
I mean my PSADT is 6 weeks, can we be more aggressive please(with treatment please not PCa)??

Sorry, just blowing off steam and frustration.............

I think I have regrets about opting for surgery. I had three bouts of urinary retention after the surgery. Ouch! Then just a few months post-surgery my PSA became detectable, and I started radiation. Tomorrow is the last day! I can't help wondering if radiation as a primary treatment would have been better.

I see that NKinney has mocked what I posted above. How clever, and how insulting. Apparently, my feelings, and my comments, failed to pass muster in NKinney's eyes. Obviously, I wasn't trying to speak for everyone in my comments. I was voicing my own opinion. I understand that some men, probably all of us, regret what cancer and the eventual treatments have done to our lives. I'm sure that, to some extent, we all do. Anyone can understand that. Still, I refuse to spend a lot of time second-guessing or regretting the decisions I made and the treatment I chose. As I said before, I just don't find that helpful. It's not the way I choose to spend my life, and I still think it's very sad when that happens in other men's lives.

And I often wonder if anyone has checked whether NKinney and JackH are the same person or perhaps doppelgangers. If they're the same person, is it allowed on the forum to post under two monikers?

Post Edited (clocknut) : 9/6/2017 7:20:41 PM (GMT-6)

NKinney aka JackH,

If you read what you posted you will see as have others, that you clearly don't think I should have posted. Otherwise why in the heck would you even state it? You sir are not the moderator nor the judge of what is acceptable.

Over the last few years you have continually denigrated, belittled, and insulted other members of this forum.

"I don’t know, but I think that when Lotsahope first started this thread and posed the question “Any regrets?” he was probably meant to ask that of the favorable risk case men, and not for the unfavorable risk men. I think this was probably the situation because Lotsahope was a 3+3 at diagnosis who was DOWNGRADED to 3+2 in post-surgery pathology, but wrote that “most important for me [in selecting treatment] was ‘just wanting it out.’” In my opinion the “Any regrets?” question wouldn’t make sense to be posed to someone with aggressive case like yours, and Lotsahope probably was thinking that favorable risk men would be replying simply because there are so many more of those cases than the aggressive cases."