I attended consultation in April following diagnosis in mid January 2025.
asked for the numbers, went home and within minutes my wife and I had decided that I would spend the year trying lose weight and getting fitter for surgery in December. I was led to believe that post op recovery would be two months and as a carpenter December and January are usually pretty rubbish work wise. We wanted to take some control following PSA 2.8 in Sept 24, biopsy, sepsis & encephalitis, diagnosis Gleason 3+4 T2c. AS through the year with quarterly PSA & consult, annual biopsy and MRI (due to age apparently). It was likely that AS could go on for years but I did not fancy exposing myself to another infection, whatever may have caused it.
Fast forward to April, we went to consultation with a resolute plan - book me in for surgery first week of December please. This was us taking control, until that is we were told about the latest PSA result. 3.2 This is a bit of a concern apparently.
From March 22 to March 24 my PSA fluctuated from 2.3 down to 1.8 and back to 2.3. September 24 it reached 2.8. That is whe;I asked my GP “When are we going to address the elephant in the prostate?” MRI referral made and the consultant sounded quite dismissive due to my age. PIRAD 4 and a phone call to book me in for biopsy. April 2025 comes around and we find that PSA of 3.2 now throws our control out of the window.
Pre-surgical MRI and assessments booked for August and if PSA has increased again then we are looking at expedited surgery. Currently this is open to any time from August. Control of my life is suspended until further notice.
I can’t book any large projects this year , I am a carpenter in a bit of a niche market, and I cannot risk being caught in the middle of a project with no one to finish it. Visions of a ‘head down, arse up’ type of year working hard to fill the bank account have also been hampered by fatigue, infection, anxiety and a not so favourable economy. Smaller projects require significantly more work to get off the ground because every small project requires the same surveys, admin, meetings and costing exercises as a larger one. Not to mention preparation, tool and equipment changeovers, multiple project prep running simultaneously and the joys of schedule changes. Large projects still require managing but far less admin and behind the scenes preparation by comparison.
Two month recovery is in fact a firm and resolute ‘minimum of three months’ before I could expect to consider returning to light duties a couple of mornings a week. That does not take into consideration the prospect of incontinence and all the joys that can bring for months while working in remote locations and peoples houses - even as a younger man - the likelihood of incontinence is a long way away from zero. I work alone for 90% of the time and there is no reasonable way to change that right now. We are considering changes to employment but we do not know enough to be able to action anything. It is becoming apparent to me, that the business I have spent decades building is likely to be put into hibernation mode and may not survive as a result of treatment. We could be in a scenario where surgery before December will mean I lose up to three month earning potential before being in a position where I need to try to return to work with limited capacity in the hardest 2-3 months of the year, physically and financially. 6 months with no income is a very different story to the 2 months we expected.
Health comes first, it does. But I would be remiss if I didn’t say that the prospect of sitting, watching my business burn away before my eyes, and unable to fix it the way I always have - getting the work done - is more of a plague on my mind than cancer itself. Our business IS the food on our plates and the roof over our heads. My skills are the business.
How does everyone else do it? I assume I am not the only one here who has been or is going through this dilemma.