It has been a roller coaster wave of emotion for the past year and a half. In the December of 2020, my dear mother suffered a severe stroke. We ended up caring for her at home until she passed away in Sept 2021. At the same time, I was diagnosed with high blood pressure and was hospitalised for 2 days, my mother then passed away a few days after I was discharged. I saw video online, talking about PSA tests, never heard of it, so decided to speak to my surgery, I was in my mid 50s, never visit the GP, in over 20yrs, now I am booking a test for prostrate cancer. A few days later I get panicky call from my GP saying my PSA result was raised at 20.. I asked her what the acceptable level was she said under 2--3. Within 2 weeks, I was booked into my local hospital for Bone Scan, my sister-in-law a consultant in The Netherlands was aghast at the NHS protocol.
Anyway that test came back negative. The next was an prostate MRI scan, that came back with a Tumour or something of concern, the next thing was a biopsy at Royal Free. The results sadly came back with a Gleeson score of 3+7 on a day that would have been my late mother's 82 birthday.
The next thing was researching the options. From new to old, I saw an oncologist at Barnet General Hospital and was amazed to see you could pretty much chart your own path. She recommended surgery over everything, but I queried her about Hormone and RT, she OK fair enough, I can start you on the tablets straight away. It just did not sound right, from not knowing much about PC now charting my path.
In February, I got a call from a consultant from UCLH, talking to me about Robotic surgery. I looked at the outcomes and I felt a bit too risky. So I enquired about the HIFU option, I was accepted on the programme, on the proviso I understook another biopsy on an area that was not sampled before. I was already by this time on a list for the robotic surgery alternative, naturally I had to come off and was put on the HIFU biopsy path. The results came out yes there was low grade cancer 3+3, this qualifies for active surveillance, and HIFU would treat the initial diagnosis. I asked the consultant what he would do in my shoes, he said owing to my age (mid 50s), he would go for surgery to remove the prostate, after 4mths I finally arrived yesterday for the robotic surgery. I was told my prostate size of 150, was huge. Thanks to the guys at UCLH, today is day1 of recovery.
Edited by member 20 May 2022 at 20:01
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