Hi All
Have been browsing here for a fair few weeks now and have learnt so much from all your own journeys so thank you for that
My story is doctors appointment on Christmas Eve for pains in side, turned out to be shingles , unbeknown to me the Doctor did a PSA test which was elevated at 4.8 , MRI followed that showed 2 abnormalities , one I think was classed as Pyrad 3 and one was 4, biopsy followed which showed the 3 was benign but 4 was cancer, so classed as 3+4=7 , T2aNOMO , no spread and fully contained in one side of prostrate, 2 cores out of 26 showed cancer @ 15%
I have just turned 56 and had no symptoms so am very glad that the doctor did the test, funny enough I called him after to ask if there was a specific reason for him doing the test but he said no and couldn’t actually recall why he did it
I think after diagnosis I was very naive and presumed when they said it was low grade that treatment would be minimal , obviously not , treatment options offered as you all will be familiar with were the normal AS, RP or RT which completely shocked me
So I have been for the past month driving myself mad investigating the best options which for me change by the hour
First thoughts were , IM not having Prostatectomy no matter what
AS worries me as it’s not going to go away but maybe short term to give me time to make a firm decision
HIFU seemed to be top of my agenda for minimal side effects but since then it seems not great long term success rates and really don’t want to have to repeat surgery or risk damaging the prostrate if it does need to come out
Ruled out RT and HT because of the time scale and side effects along with the fact that again if it comes back you can’t have the surgery
The one thing that I am interested in though now is SABR which sounds encouraging
But overall it seems to come back to Surgery the very one that I was adamant I wouldn’t have , from reading stories on here it seems that there are a few different types of the robotic surgery, Single Port Entry, Neuro Safe, Rezeous Sparing , also seems to be a lot of advice to choose your surgeon carefully , I have narrowed down surgeons to about 4 now and I think some on here might have used the same but I see no names have been mentioned , is it against the rules on here to reccomended surgeons ? Anyway 2 of the favourites our Professors connected to London Bridge ,
I am fortunate that I can consider private options for the surgery if I go down that route
Was hoping for any thoughts, advice on the above please ?
Thanks and best wishes to you all
Nick