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My Long Journey

User
Posted 15 Jul 2017 at 11:54
Hi I am Ian , I am 67 and six weeks post op robotic surgery and twenty two months since being diagnosed. I went to my then GP in September 2015 with fatigue and on examination he told me that my prostate was hard and lumpy and that should cancel my holiday and he would arrange an urgent appointment with the hospital.

Two weeks later I was examined by a specialist nurse at the hospital who told me that my prostate was soft , smooth and normal. But of course the seed of doubt had been sown so I went to London and paid for a 3 tesla multi parametric MRI this lead me to request a targeted biopsy at a hospital about forty miles from home which specialised in this. Shortly before my biopsy the consultant told me that on viewing my scans that I did not have cancer but would carry out the biopsy anyway.

Imagine my shock when two weeks later I was told by a nurse that not only did I have cancer it was not the slow growing kind. All in all I have seen seven consultants at six different hospitals and had seven different opinions about the best way forward. As you can imagine this was causing much distress to my wife and I , and for this reason I decided to have surgery . The good news is that I went for my pathology results yesterday and I am cancer free and have what they call a curative outcome.

My incontinance improves each day and am to be prescribed tablets for E.D, more of which I will write about in the relationship page. If my experience is anything to by the whole system needs a good shake up.

User
Posted 15 Jul 2017 at 20:33

Hi Ian,

Some conflicting opinions there but to some extent at least it shows that all or some of the indicators can be difficult to access. (Can't see you gave any PSA figures.) Scans do not always reveal cancer and we have had at least one member on this forum where it took 3 biopsies to actually find his cancer. I have had different opinions on whether an Iliac node is cancerous from probably the 2 leading cancer hospitals in the UK after viewing the same high quality Choline scan. So it's far from straight forward, although surprising that the feel of your prostate was thought so different. Certainly, better diagnostic tools are needed.

Good outcome thought and hope side effects of surgery continue to diminish.

Barry
 
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