Posted 12/20/2015 5:31 PM (GMT 0)
I was driving in my truck with a friend when the phone call came in over the screen of my truck. It was my doctor and it was the second time he had called my cell phone over the past four years. The first time he called was after a stress test and I was told to check into a hospital immediately. We haggled over this a bit over the phone since I was a 1,000 miles from home and was in the middle of a project, but within days of that call I had triple bi-pass surgery.
The second time he called was a bit more bothersome. It was just six weeks ago I had seen him for a complete physical at 55 and I was feeling pretty good, but my psa was high and he told me to go see a urologist. My psa was an alarming 37 although at the time I had no idea what a good number was.
Going to see that urologist was one of the most shocking days of my life. The urologist explained to me that he was going to insert his finger up my ass to feel the prostate and immediately after that he explained that a healthy prostate should feel smooth and soft, whereas mine was hard like a walnut. "What does that mean?" I asked and he replied without skipping a beat "that would be the cancer." I was the first time I had ever heard that word that used to describe my condition. I will never forget that day as long as I live.
My father dropped dead of a massive heart attack when he was 54 and I inherited that heart of his and to make it to 55 and actually outlive him had always a secret milestone of mine. Prostate cancer on the other hand was something I knew nothing about. After heart surgery I cut out certain foods and exercised more frequently, and dropped some weight, but cancer is different, much different- there is nothing I can personally do to slow it down- this treatment has to come from the medical profession and there are several ways to treat it.
My wife and I consulted a number of people we knew. My wife's sister is a nurse and she recommended a urologist to get a second opinion on how to treat it. My brother is in the insurance business and he suggested I contact my Uncle who also suffered from prostate cancer. He is a retired dentist now and many of his friends had prostate cancer and were also in the medical profession. There seemed to be two procedures. One was to remove the prostate completely or to attack it with radiation and radioactive seed implants. We chose the latter and based on the recommendation of my Uncle he referred me to a highly respected doctor in Seattle. That man referred me to Dr. Brian Moran and that decision I truly believed saved my life.
It's been just over two years since I had the radioactive seeds implanted and it had been about a year since I had seen Dr. Moran. He was all smiles when he saw me at the clinic the other day and shouted my name over the half a dozen people in the lobby waiting to see him. He had just got my psa results from yesterday and said it was beyond belief...0.1 and the year before that it was 0.07. "It just doesn't get any lower that that." he said and mentioned in private that I had been one of his greatest success stories. He looked at the screen for sometime and just kept shaking his head how bad I actually had it. 'You'd be dead by now if we didn't treat you as son as we did."
If you are reading this- chances are you are faced with some grim decisions and soul searching. For me it all boiled down to trusting your doctor and the procedures he has outlined for you. The first obvious decision is to live. That is paramount. However, there was the quality of life you would be faced once you are on the road to recovery.
My treatment went like this. First it was three months of some drug that robbed my body of testosterone. There was only one adverse side effect and that was hot flashes and boy was that bad on some days. It didn't matter if I was in an air conditioned room, but a wave of heat would race through my body and i would sweat and would be uncomfortable for as long as an hour. This might have happened 2-3 times a day and went on for months. The second was the radiation therapy, six weeks of it sitting perfectly still for 20 minutes while a bean of radiation zaps your prostate from all angles. It was harmless and reasonably quick, but I did have some emotional breakdowns driving home from that, thinking about life possibly slipping by and leaving my wife and family and a career that I love. Lastly though came the seeds and I was in an out of there in a matter of hours. Two days later I went overseas to a major project that I headed and had little or no serious affects from all of this. The hot flashes would creep up, but not as frequent, but there was very little other side affects from all of these procedures. I focused on my work and did not tell a soul outside of my immediate family of what I had been going through.
But there have been some side effects and it took some time for them to develop. For the past year, maybe longer it hurt like hell to pee and would hurt for ten minutes after I urinated. And it is just recently, maybe the last six weeks that I noticed that pain has gone away. (It has been about 27 months since I was treated.) I was prepared to live with that if that is what it took to survive this, but it has healed considerably since then. The other affliction and something not uncommon in older men is that beginning about 9 months ago when I would get the impulse to urinate I quickly learned that I had about a 5 minute window to relieve myself or else risk pissing my pants. I can't tell you how many close calls I have had. I also noticed that if i have been sitting in a car for a long time or laying in bed after sleeping that as soon as I stand up I have a minute or two to get to a toilet, but again its just these last six weeks or so that even that sudden urge is slowly healing too. Dr. Moran and my radiation oncologist Dr. Ruffer both said that these conditions can/will eventually heal themselves and so it has made my life so much more enjoyable, but again I was prepared to live my whole life like that if it meant surviving. And finally my sex drive and that whole can of worms- erections and ejaculating has diminished considerably. I can still get erections but it seems only when I don't need it like at 4 am, and my orgasm although still there has diminished to the point where I rarely do that anymore. It's like an old friend that has gone out of your life but you still have a great appreciation for, but again if this is the cost of life I choose to walk with the living. And as much as tv likes to tell you how important that function is, of all the three complications I have had to deal with since the radioactive seeds, that is my least concern at 57 years old.
Good luck with your treatment and live your life. One thing this ordeal has taught me is to value my time here a bit more and do a few more things. Get busy living or get busy dying. I like the former and I thank my lucky stars that I had such good care of both Dr. Moran, Dr. Rufffer and personal physician Dr. Stein who as much as I hate getting phone calls from him - I know is looking out for my best interest.