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A load of symptoms and worried!

User
Posted 29 Aug 2018 at 08:27

@MarkBerks...

As you mentioned 'man-up', let's expand on it...

There comes a point at which 'STFU, deal with it' becomes a genuinely caring and worthwhile suggestion rather than uncaring cruel dismissal.

And hey, guess what?

Such a point as been reached, and your 'digging deeper, within' will be helpful to you.

Whatever 'external empathy and sympathy' is sought and available is relatively minor in comparison with what you personally 'need' and are almost certainly able (with appropriate mindset and effort) to do.

Right now, the facts are clear: you have pain, which may be symptomatic of PCa.

Further supposition is: you may actually have PCa.

If you don't, or do, we can again call on fact: if you don't, that's one worry less. If you do, then it's either relatively minor or relatively significant.

Returning again to conjecture: if such PCa is relatively minor, you'll probably not be too troubled by it. If it's sufficiently relatively significant it'll kill you.

So, 'them's the facts, them's the guesses'.

Beyond what I've already suggested, my advice is 'remember that it could always be worse, and be grateful that it's not'.

[Yesterday at my GP surgery (for the hormone-block jab I'd forgotten to get last week - yes, so unbothered am I by my PCa, that I forgot to do the thing that's helping keep me alive and in relative good health), I clumsily quipped on this with: 'Yes, I could be living in Netwon Abbot.' [My apologies to those so-located, for my unfair dismissal of your locale.]

 

User
Posted 29 Aug 2018 at 08:44

Morning everyone, regarding the survival statistics posted today by John. I've got a bit of paper with those written down which I keep inside my bedside drawer so that I can't help but regularly see them. It definately helps me. 

Paul.

User
Posted 29 Aug 2018 at 18:49

Thanks again all. I am going to abstain from google now as I just read that breast cancer that runs in families increases greatly the risk of prostate cancer...my mothers side has it in spades (both her and my sister as well as aunties etc). Feels like the gun is loaded from the off now and once again anxiety is going nuts. Oh, and I eat a lot of red meat etc....

So, with the symptoms, genetics, diet and age I look to be a prime candidate to join the club. I think I know the answer I will be hearing BUT my only thread of hope now is that the symptoms are related to it being near the urethra rather than everywhere and it can still be resolved.

Scans on Friday - followed by what may seem like the wait from hell, then the meeting from hell...

Ugh...

But thanks for your answers and listening once again. I wish I had known more at an earlier age and got tested from about 45...then I may have been in a better place mentally than where I am now awaiting the inevitable...

User
Posted 30 Aug 2018 at 12:58
Thanks Neil - appreciate the time taken to reply. I know it is more about my reaction to the fear and uncertainty as well as the facts that I have symptoms which is not a good sign at all. The GP said it was smooth and normal, the Urologist said 'firm' on one side so I am hoping that it has been caught at a local stage and my back pain is more down to anxiety and stress than the actual illness. Still, having symptoms is the biggest part of my worry as you can imagine.

But thanks for thinking of me and I am really trying to be 'objective' and realise that I do not have any diagnosis at this stage, more a collection of symptoms and one DRE that felt firm rather than 'hard' or knobbly...

Kind regards,

Mark

User
Posted 03 Sep 2018 at 10:03

So, had the mpMRI and a CT scan of my abdomen done last Friday. Now seeing the consultant on Saturday 8th. Absolutely terrified now and really searching for some inner strength as I am finding it very difficult commuting into London and working a full day appearing engaged and directing people on what they should be doing. Shaking inside like a leaf!

How on earth do you guys deal with the tests and waiting without going into a dark hole? I have a history of depression caused by anxiety so this is a tricky one to deal with as one feeds the other. I am just hoping that despite all the symptoms it has been caught early enough or I really will not know what to do!

Is it worth a call in to the nurses on here even before diagnosis? Based on my consultants DRE and the expected subsequent test results I do need to talk it through with someone but not sure who or how?

Thanks again for any direction through the minefield...

Mark

User
Posted 04 Sep 2018 at 22:54

Distraction works - the more exiting the better! Remember stress is BAD and doesn't help anything.  Over time you will find what works for you.

User
Posted 05 Sep 2018 at 00:49

Originally Posted by: Online Community Member

Unfortunately the simple fact is that most men over 60 have prostate cancer, and the overwhelming majority of them will die with it, not from it, and will never need any treatment.

I here this line a lot. I don’t believe it any more. I actually think that most men do get PCa and it effectively limits or artificially shortens their optimal lives at around the 80-85 year mark as a non diagnosed, non treated malignancy that is often passed off as other end of life issues. There isn’t a lot of meaningful autopsy done on 80-85 year old‘s (Men or Women) and unfortunatly the end stages of PCa look very much like extreme old age.

Can someone point me to research that can prove that this mass (“most men”) disease has no life shortening effect on the normal life expectancy of men. 

Fresh

Edited by member 05 Sep 2018 at 00:50  | Reason: Not specified

Base jumping without a parachute should be frowned at, never criticised. Fresh

User
Posted 05 Sep 2018 at 01:59
It came from a pan-European study of men over the age of 18. A range of postmortem results were taken into scope so the men had died at all different ages from the whole range of possible causes of death - from road accidents to suicide to cancer. The results were that 50% of men in their 50s, 70% of men in their 70s and just less than 80% of men in their 80s had some cancer in their prostate although the majority will have died totally unaware of that fact. A different study found that 100% of men aged 90 or over had some prostate cancer.

I dispute the statement that the end stages of prostate cancer look like old age. Dying a painful death with organ failure, agonising bone pain, paralysed by SCC or knocked out on morphine looks nothing like old age.

I don't like that phrase though - most men die with it not of it. That is no comfort to the 10,000 men who die each year of advanced PCa (or their family & friends) - the fact is that although it is very common (and for men who live a long life, almost universal) cannot be allowed to take away from the fact that it kills too many men too soon.

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Soren Kierkegaard

User
Posted 07 Sep 2018 at 11:10

So, tomorrow I will get the results back of PSA, CT and mpMRI scans in one go from prof in Surrey. 8:45am appointment and right now I do not know how to feel or what to do with my brain. I am working (trying) and distracting (trying), but any advice or even some words to let me know I am not alone will be appreciated. It almost feels like my entire life can turn on a dime by around 9am tomorrow...what a horrible feeling and incredibly lonely!

M

User
Posted 07 Sep 2018 at 11:23
Well try to act to remove that feeling. Try ringing one of the nurses on here and talk through how you are feeling. They are fantastic at helping you feel better and can outline the numerous options that will be available to you whatever the diagnosis is. They have helped me numerous times! Best of luck to you Mark and fingers crossed for tomorrow. Ring them!

Richard

User
Posted 07 Sep 2018 at 11:27

Thanks Richard -  I think I will! I appreciate you reading and responding...means a lot.

Mark

User
Posted 07 Sep 2018 at 11:29
Mark, you're NOT alone. We've all been there, and we know how horrible it is waiting for results. Try to do something mindless to occupy yourself with - clean out a cupboard or paint the garden fence or something like that. Try not to make assumptions about whether you'll get either good news or bad news tomorrow. What will be, will be, and there's nothing you can do to change it.

Write down the list of questions you want to ask the urologist tomorrow, and take that list of questions with you into the meeting. I remember that as soon as he said "you've got cancer" to me, I basically blanked out and everything after that was a blur, which is not the ideal way to do it.

Finally, remember that if it turns out that you do have cancer, it's not the end of the world, and it's not a death sentence. I was told in my meeting that I had not one but two different cancers, and three months later one's been fixed, one's well on the way to being fixed, and I'm enjoying life again.

You may think "I can't get through this", but you will. Just take it a day at a time and remember you're not alone. We're all here to support you, as are the PC-UK nurses.

I wish you the very best of luck for tomorrow,

Chris

User
Posted 07 Sep 2018 at 15:24

Thank-you Chris - that is really helpful to know and I appreciate there are those who have been, and go through this, every day but it seems such a daunting prospect. Will do my best although I suspect sleep will be difficult tonight...

User
Posted 07 Sep 2018 at 18:49

Does your Prof. in Surrey’s surname begin with E?

User
Posted 07 Sep 2018 at 19:04
Did you ring the nurses, Mark?

User
Posted 07 Sep 2018 at 20:57

Hi Chris, yes I did and she was very understanding and it was good to get a friendly ear to listen to my neurosis!

 

hi Bollinge. Yes surname begins with E. A bit like the project in Cornwall!

User
Posted 08 Sep 2018 at 05:42

Absolutely top man. You are in fantastic hands!

Best of luck.

Cheers, John

User
Posted 08 Sep 2018 at 14:09

Well that was an interesting meeting with the Prof E. PSA is 0.7, CT scan clear, kidneys normal and the mpMRI does show something but he thinks it is Prostatitis and may well calm down over time. He suggested another MRI in 3 months and said if it was him he would not be having a biopsy right now. Not sure how to feel really as it seems good news but not really definitive and symptoms still there and very annoying. On antibiotics again!

i am thinking the low PSA and normal scans coupled with symptoms makes prostatitis more likely but I still have that nagging doubt. No idea why as he didn’t seem concerned and he must have seen hundreds of men by now!

User
Posted 08 Sep 2018 at 15:16

f****** happy days Mark, you hypochondriac!

The Prof has done 3000 + prostatectomies, let alone thousands more consultations with worried wimps like you, so take the good news from him as gospel until you hear to the contrary.

Couldn’t be more pleased for you!

Keep on top of it anyway, annual PSA checks from now on.

If and when you do see him again, do tell him he still owes me 2”!

Best of luck.

Cheers, John.

Edited by member 08 Sep 2018 at 17:04  | Reason: Not specified

User
Posted 08 Sep 2018 at 18:39

Thanks John. He did say I have a pirads score of 3 but if it was him he wouldn’t biopsy and simply run another MRI in 3 months so I am taking that as a victory and try to control the hypochondria!!

once again thanks for the kind words all and I will be on here to hopefully help others where I can. Already warming up for Movember :-)

 
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