Haven't posted for a while....but keep reading and learning from other posts. Thank you. My husband has continued to do PSA test every 3 months...stretching to every 6 months...and now longer. He...
I first posted here about 2 years ago. I was freaked out and thinking things were quite glum. Just got the latest PSA....still undetectable. Yahoo!...
Forgot to mention, Medical Center of the Rockies is part of the UC system and I think Dr. Lee is associated with them, too....
Our experience at University of Colorado wasn't so good. My husband saw a different doctor there, not Dr. Crawford mentioned by others. It's great that they have a team approach, but it seemed broken...
Melanie, If you aren't satisfied with the detail that your urologist is able to provide you with, consider calling the pathologist that did the work. This is what we did when we wanted to get more...
Jim, if you're Urologist was basing the "probable spread to seminal vesicle" on the ultrasound that guided the biopsy, wanted to give you a ray of hope. The top urologist at the top cancer center in...
You might consider Dr. Michael Lee at Urology Center of the Rockies in Ft. Collins, CO. They are a part of the University of Colorado system. I've never met a doctor quite like Dr. Lee - extremely...
The bags hold, I think 3-4 cans of food (he's sleeping right now and has the bag, so I can't check) and each can is 8 oz. When he was doing 24-hour feeding, he would go through about 8 cans in 24...
acsd, yes that has, and is, being considered if I pass a certain threshold, or if after the teeth removal, it becomes too much to handle. my pcp talked about a system you can wear that keeps a steady...
David, Have any of the doctors suggested a feeding tube (stomach tube)? Especially with the extracted teeth, that seems like something that could be considered for you. And there are so many...
Thanks for posting that. I'm going to get my husband to watch it. He has pretty much decided that he wouldn't do SRT (due to substantial quality of life issues resulting from his radiation from a...
We actually called the pathologist that did the work on my husband's surgical specimen. She described in detail what the cells looked like at the site of his EPE. I don't think the pathologists deal...
David (Purgatory), Your post hit home. The RO has been pushing for SRT for my husband, even though he is on a feeding tube because of radiation damage from his tonsil cancer treatment 10 years ago....
Wow, those are beautiful. I'm a graphic artist, so I spend a lot of time looking at photos....your's are stunning....
I found your detailed story very interesting. I experienced the whole thing from the wife's perspective....so it's interesting to get a chance to see it from the patient's viewpoint. My husband never...
alephnull, not sure if anyone answered your question. You have to get the more sensitive test to get the.0x numbers. At our doc office, they tag the specimen as "post prostatectomy" to make sure that...
Have the doctors discussed putting him on a feeding tube? It is a 15 min procedure and can be well worth it. I speak from experience - my husband lost so much weight during cancer treatment 10 years...
Hi Ashley, My husband's stats were somewhat similar. We consulted with several doctors and it seems the urologist/surgeons push surgery and the radiation oncologists radiation. We decided on surgery,...
Thanks, Marilyn. My husband had a visit at UC and was actually scheduled for surgery there, but then went a different route (a surgeon that had done twice as many robotic prostatectomies). We're...
mbock, you sound a lot like me. I never thought I'd be a subscriber to "Uro Today." The conflicting recommendations a conflicting studies make decisions difficult....
Latest issue of Uro Today includes a study relating to immune system suppression of general anaesthesia during RP. The study looks at weather that immune suppression contributes to cancer recurrence....
Blackdog, You remind me an awful lot of my husband. For the last 3 years, he has found every reason not to do a biopsy, even though 3 different doctors recommended one because of his slowly climbing...
Surgery itself was pretty uneventful - surgeon said that it was one of the easiest he had done. He did preserve nerve bundles on both sides, which kind of surprised me, given his 12/12 biopsy....
We're still trying to decide if husband should go with ART in January. I keep asking doctors if his high tumor volume (60%) increases his risk of BCR...none of the doctors have payed much attention...
I've just read the section comparing the two in Walsh's book - he sure makes a case for open being better (but maybe that's because that is what he knows best?). One thing that struck me is that he...
I think we've finally decided to wait and watch PSA - instead of going for ART, as the RO recommends. Talked to urologist/surgeon today and he said that one of the reasons to wait is that the...
My husband's first post op PSA came back <.02 undetectable. He had another PSA test a month later and it came back <.1 - same lab. The first report called it a "post-prostatectomy PSA test" and the...
Reading some more studies, it seems like large tumor volume is an independent factor in chance of BCR in some studies. Since husband's tumor was 60% of prostate - which is a very large amount - I'm...
Thanks, Sephie. That's great news about your husband....
I had never heard of TUCC....just Googled it and it looks promising. Thanks for the info....
Our experience at UCH was mixed. We had consult with surgeon there, thinking that would be the best place for surgery. We went through all the steps leading up to scheduling surgery, last one being...
We were thinking of contacting D'Amico, based on that research article. Good to have the heads up that he won't do a phone consult. We actually talked to the post-op pathologist this morning. I don't...
Seems to be a fairly common pattern - the RO wants ART, the surgeon or urologist/surgeon says wait and watch PSA. Wonder how the surgeon decides how many lymph nodes to remove. My husband only had 7...
Thanks for that clarification - that makes sense....
We're in Colorado. We were thinking of looking into sending history and path report to Dana Farber (D'Amico?) or some other major cancer center....hoping they would do a phone consult. The RO is...
We're back into decision mode. Since path report from surgery shows EPE, RO wants to start ART. Husband is scheduled for planning CT on December 2nd. But urologist that did the surgery is urging...
update: Husband had DaVinci RRP on Sept. 13th. Actually went better than expected. No lymph node involvement (surgeon wasn't going to proceed if nodes were positive). Pathology not great - but also...
We were pretty much settled on skipping the surgery and going right to HT and radiation. Husband has already started on Casodex and gets 1st Lupron shot on Monday. But, in phone consult with surgeon...
More discussions with doctors, more confusion on treatment decision. We feel frustrated that there doesn't seem to be a "standard of treatment" based on staging, stats. Husband starts on Casodex...
thanks. I'll check out Dr. Glode. To me, one of the advantages of the surgery route is that it provides more details - via pathology. Brachytherapy wouldn't provide any information on degree of...
met with RO yesterday. He says HT and 7 weeks of radiation should be started after surgery, no matter what the pathology. This differs some from surgeon who said that if there is LN involvement, only...
When the "tumor board" at CU Cancer Center met and discussed his case, wouldn't they have had a medical oncologist weighing in? They ended up split between surgery or radiation as primary treatment....
There have been two reads of the slides - one by the lab that the urologist that did the biopsy uses, one by University of Colorado Cancer Center. No difference, that I know of, between the two...
Thanks for all the responses - you are really calming me down. He did have CT scan that didn't show anything. He is so thin that one doctor said CT scans of lymph nodes can be hard to read on a...
Thanks for the welcome. He sees a radiation oncologist Monday...so we'll see what he has to see. Really getting a feeling of "When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" from this...
Hello. My husband had a biopsy a few weeks ago - came back 12 out of 12 cores positive, G7. That news seemed bad enough, but then we met with a surgeon who did an ultrasound and saw "thickening" of...