Giving back:
I was treated for prostate cancer in 2010 with brachytherapy. Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto has been keeping an eye on me since then, although I didn’t get my test done last year … which says something. Maybe, subconsciously, I have persuaded myself that this is over.
In any event, I kept my appointment this year, and here are my test results, in context:
May 2010 psa 5.54 (my first ever PSA test, given when I was 50 years old)
July 2010 9.58 (the re-test. 0.42 below the hospital’s cutoff point for curative therapy, a good-hearted press-gang of doctors told me, while urging me in the strongest possible terms to not try “watchful waiting” given my relative youth and the alarming trend. Get treated as quickly as possible. I described what followed in some posts on this board)
-> treated with brachytherapy seeds in August 2010 <-
Nov 2010 7.88
Dec 2010 4.35
Mar 2011 4.74
Sep 2011 2.64
Mar 2012 2.41
Dec 2012 3.49 (the “bounce”. A difficult moment.)
Mar 2013 2.06
Aug 2013 2.20 (the “bounce bounce”.)
Nov 2013 1.08
Mar 2014 1.87 (And again. They told me this was getting unusual).
May 2014 1.08
Nov 2014 0.93
Jul 2015 0.96 (Not going to annual testing yet).
Jan 2016 0.36
Jul 2016 0.40 (never a dull moment)
Mar 2017 0.16
April 2018 0.05
May 2019 0.06 (One more time…)
May 2020 < 0.05
May 2021 0.03
And then, a week ago…
August 2023 0.02
So there you go — it’s never 100% entirely over when you’re treated with radiation, so it would seem. But in my case, so far, there has been no decade+ recurrence, either.
I took a great deal of comfort from this forum and community throughout this long journey. Which seems to never really end. But it turns out to be possible to just about
never think about
it anymore, except when it’s time for that annual test.
If you’re new here I offer you the numbers above as words of hope. You have every reason to be hopeful and optimistic.
As I said at the beginning, giving back.
Post Edited (briantopp) : 9/5/2023 10:20:03 AM (GMT-8)