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Hi Bagpus,

I think positive thinking will help you a lot.

Firstly research shows that by the time we hit 60 most men have PCa (prostate cancer), some know it but most do not, indeed many men will live full and rewarding lives and die in their 80's and 90's of something unrelated without ever realising that they had PCa.

Your Gleason score is a good one to have, my consultant told me that men with G9 and G10 are likely to die of PCa whatever their doctors do, men with G5 and G6 will live long enough to die of something else, it is the G7's and 8's that are the challenge, they are the cases where good doctors make most difference.

With your G6, T2b, diagnosis you have pretty much all of the treatment options available to you, and plenty of time to make up your mind.  So my advice is to take as much time as you need to weigh up the pro's and con's of all treatment options and decide which is right for you.

In your deliberations you might want to give some consideration to the non-treatment options, variously called Active Monitoring or Watchful Weighting, recent statistics suggest that your life expectancy isn't diminished by doing nothing.  I know men who have rushed into radical treatment, in the belief that it is best to cut the cancer out, who have been left impotent, incontinent as a result, and have all the time in the world to wonder if they did the right thing.  

Positive thinking is important, my diagnosis was rather worse than yours (G9T3), but I am still here nearly 10 years later, and what a wonderful ten years they have been, I spent some wonderful days last summer, splashing in the surf and making sandcastles on the beach with my grandchildren, who weren't anything but a twinkle in their father's eye when I was diagnosed. 

So you really can look forward to doing the same in 10, 15 maybe 20 years time, irrespective of whatever treatment option you choose.

Always remember the maxim 'I've got cancer, but cancer hasn't got me'.   

:)

Dave

Hi Dave.

Thank you very much for your positive response. I absolutely agree that positive thinking is the way to go.

Now that I have accepted the fact that I have PCa, I have decided that my current treatment programme(active surveillance) is right for me. As you say, why spend the rest of your life wondering if you've made the wrong decision? ( although I've made plenty of those over the years!!)

I am grateful for your input as to the staging diagnosis, I haven't had it explained to me in those terms. 

I have recently received the Toolkit, and will be delving into that. 

Again, thank you Dave for your help. I sincerely wish you many more days on the beach with your grandchildren.

We don't have any, but if we do, I intend to be around to meet them.

All the best for now.

Remember : Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life. 

You have been given some helpful thoughts and it would certainly be neither my place nor my intention to advocate precipitous treatment. However, sometimes the Gleason score as assessed at biopsy is lower than it actually should be. We know this because when removed prostates are examined in the lab, a number are reassessed with a higher number. In some cases the staging is also found to have gone further than was thought with MRI and biopsy. If on AS, it is therefore most important that a man is regularly monitored, so the best opportunity of successful treatment, should this be needed, is not missed.

Thank you all for your advice and support. I have an appointment with consultant in February, and will have PSA test prior to this.

I have been told that I will have consultant assessments every three to four months. I must admit though, that my major worry is the time between PSA tests. As Barry says, regular monitoring could prevent missing the opportunity to intervene.

With that in mind, I will have to see what the outcome of next PSA test shows, but I am determined to stay positive about the outcome.

I had trans pereneal biopsy in October, and out of 46 cores, three were found to be cancerous.

Thank you all again.

Remember: Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life.

Hi
I have been on AS for 4 years, for the first year I saw the consultant about every 3 months and had a PSA test done just before the appointment. After the first year my appointments decreased to every 6 months, but I have continued to have 3 monthly PSA. For the interim ones I get the result from my GPs, and if I see a significant rise I will be contacting my consultant.
I requested the 3 monthly tests for my own piece of mind, and my consultant was happy with this.

The only problems I have had were a receptionist at the GPs telling me the result was normal, and not providing a number, a request for an appointment got me the result I required. No problems since.

Also a phlebotomist once queried the frequency and tried to lecture me on the costs of the test, I spoke to my consultant and now have no problems.

Watch for hospital appointments people stretching the time between consultant appointments. I was once told that my appointment was less important as it was only monitoring and patients requiring treatment or diagnosis had higher priority.

For me it is important that I have some control over my AS, and I will continue to do this.

Alan