My dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer a few weeks ago. It has spread to 3 of his ribs and 'some' vertebrae so we know it's about management now, not cure. He has some complications to the normal treatment plan.
He was given the monthly hormone injection in two sites (one on each side of his abdomen) the day he was diagnosed. Unfortunately, he's allergic to it. So once it wears off he'll go onto tablets for a month then try the three monthly hormone injection.
We saw oncology on Tuesday and were told he can't have chemo. My dad has polycythaemia vera which is a cancer of the red blood cells and bone marrow. He's had it over 20 years and it's managed well with the chemo tablets he's on. But because they can't give two types of chemo at the same time, they've decided not to stop his poly treatment - which makes perfect sense and certainly seems the right call.
It also looks like he won't get radiotherapy because they think he has 6 or 7 areas of spread and they won't treat if there's more than 5 because there's no evidence it has any beneficial effect.
Currently it feels like a lot of possibilities have been shut down to us and that's a scary place to be.