Hello George and welcome.
ASAP ! Seriously, as a wife I know how it feels to partner a man with PC.
According to my husband I generally worry if I have nothing to worry about in life.
In this case, I have been able to channel that worry into something positive ie doing the research that my man can't/doesn't want to do.
At some stage your wife will have to know your situation and she will worry dreadfully every time you go off for an appointment.
She'll worry when you come back that you aren't telling her the whole story in an effort to protect her ~(whether you are or not)
I don't obviously know to what extent she normally worries.
It helps a lot in any case to have somebody with you for results as you don't always take in what is being said. There have always been both of us at appointments and we still sometimes leave and both of us forget some of what was said.
As Topgun says, she could ask your GP for support, even if only in the short term whilst things are being sorted out.
Everyone on here will tell you that it is the waiting around that is the horrible bit.
Once things are confirmed and you know which path to take it might get easier for both of you.
If you have each other and can support each other it is a massive help and you obviously care about her because you don't want her to worry.
Keep posting on here - whatever your concerns or problems may be.
Somebody is bound to have been there - done that - and will have a wealth of knowledge.
Perhaps your wife could join up or provide input to your posts. It may help her to see that other halves are also concerned.
Good luck with everything.
Best Wishes Sandra
We can't control the winds - but we can adjust our sails |
User
Hi GeorgeGG.
Sorry to meet you here.
Along with the others, get her involved from day 1. You're going to need the mental and physical support from each other. This blasted disease needs a concerted attack from all participants, and as a team you can do a better job than you can on your own. My wife has been there for me all the way, and at times has stopped me getting into silly thoughts.
You'll also need a secretary to assist with Q&A sessions, because you won't remember anything, and to cope with the vast amount of paper that the medicos push at you😲
Take your time, get together and both become stronger.
Take it a day at a time, don't get ahead of yourself and bring on more needless stress and worry.
Can't say relax, but try to.
Do hope all goes well for you and your wife.
Keep smiling.
Regards and good luck.
Chris
User
George
I went down a similar route to you I wanted to do it all on my own , my OH knew I was having tests for prostate cancer but I wanted to attend all the scans and tests on my own. In hind sight a very selfish thing to do. As so many comments take her or someone with you for the results. I only remember two things from my results one was bad news and the other was not good advice. As I have mentioned in other posts a work mate 64 has had very high PSA readings and several biopsies over a three year period and a few weeks ago he was given the all clear. You may be getting anxious for nothing.
All the best for you tests
Thanks Chris
User
Hi George,
Just a quick note ref you being the head secretarial honcho in you house and being deaf. If you ask politely most GPs do not object to having their consultations recorded on a dictaphone. I am sure that if you explained your situation your GP and later your consultant will quite happily agree to this which will allow you more time to go over what was said and believe me there will be much that was said which passed by in the night so to speak.
Best of luck
Barry ( alias Barrington )
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User
Hello GeorgeGG,
It is my experience that wives should be involved from day 1, they are canny folk and soon pick up on our worries anyway. I can understand why you want to protect your wife and yes she will worry with the inevitable time waiting for results being the worse which can bring on stress. Once you have told your wife of your worries advise her to see her GP who can offer some form of stress control
Best of luck
Life is for living
Barry ( alias Barrington )
PS I note you live in the South West I don't know if Weymouth is near enough but there is a PCa support group there which welcomes men and their partners. The next meeting is on the 2nd Wednesday in August, send me an email for further details if interested
User
Hello George and welcome.
ASAP ! Seriously, as a wife I know how it feels to partner a man with PC.
According to my husband I generally worry if I have nothing to worry about in life.
In this case, I have been able to channel that worry into something positive ie doing the research that my man can't/doesn't want to do.
At some stage your wife will have to know your situation and she will worry dreadfully every time you go off for an appointment.
She'll worry when you come back that you aren't telling her the whole story in an effort to protect her ~(whether you are or not)
I don't obviously know to what extent she normally worries.
It helps a lot in any case to have somebody with you for results as you don't always take in what is being said. There have always been both of us at appointments and we still sometimes leave and both of us forget some of what was said.
As Topgun says, she could ask your GP for support, even if only in the short term whilst things are being sorted out.
Everyone on here will tell you that it is the waiting around that is the horrible bit.
Once things are confirmed and you know which path to take it might get easier for both of you.
If you have each other and can support each other it is a massive help and you obviously care about her because you don't want her to worry.
Keep posting on here - whatever your concerns or problems may be.
Somebody is bound to have been there - done that - and will have a wealth of knowledge.
Perhaps your wife could join up or provide input to your posts. It may help her to see that other halves are also concerned.
Good luck with everything.
Best Wishes Sandra
We can't control the winds - but we can adjust our sails |
User
Hi GeorgeGG.
Sorry to meet you here.
Along with the others, get her involved from day 1. You're going to need the mental and physical support from each other. This blasted disease needs a concerted attack from all participants, and as a team you can do a better job than you can on your own. My wife has been there for me all the way, and at times has stopped me getting into silly thoughts.
You'll also need a secretary to assist with Q&A sessions, because you won't remember anything, and to cope with the vast amount of paper that the medicos push at you😲
Take your time, get together and both become stronger.
Take it a day at a time, don't get ahead of yourself and bring on more needless stress and worry.
Can't say relax, but try to.
Do hope all goes well for you and your wife.
Keep smiling.
Regards and good luck.
Chris
User
George
I went down a similar route to you I wanted to do it all on my own , my OH knew I was having tests for prostate cancer but I wanted to attend all the scans and tests on my own. In hind sight a very selfish thing to do. As so many comments take her or someone with you for the results. I only remember two things from my results one was bad news and the other was not good advice. As I have mentioned in other posts a work mate 64 has had very high PSA readings and several biopsies over a three year period and a few weeks ago he was given the all clear. You may be getting anxious for nothing.
All the best for you tests
Thanks Chris
User
Hello Barry
Thank you for that helpful advice. My wife is as canny as other wives and has picked up on my anxiety. That shows by her making some improvements to our diet which is already very good.
As to the worries, she is reluctant to see her G.P. about them. Perhaps when we know my details she will have real things to focus on and worry less about relatively unimportant matters. But worriers worry.
Thanks too for the suggestion of the PC support group. Although Weymouth is rather far for us I should look on the web to see if I can find one that is reasonably local.
George
User
Hello Sandra
Thank you for your welcome and this lovely helpful note. Good to have the viewpoint from a worrier (husbands like me classify wives like that don’t they. But they enjoy the loving care.) Yes, we are both in the dark until we know the results of the MRI scan and biopsy. My wife, I am sure is quite as anxious as I am, possibly more so for she is arthritic and needs my practical support and dreads being left alone. That identifies my first duty in considering treatment and it is essential she takes part in the decisions.
The weight of advice is to involve her ASAP and that makes me think around this very carefully. I shall add a note as to my thinking, probably later today in the hope of further advice and encouragement.
Your point on note taking is very helpful. However, I am the one who supplies ‘secretarial services’ in our household and I will have to mange to continue that in these far from ideal circumstances. I hope the Urologist will be patient with me. Note taking takes a little time. A deaf listener takes even more. I am quite used to asking people to repeat what they said, and to speak more slowly. New names are a huge problem. All that takes a lot of extra time and people with normal hearing can and often do find it very frustrating.
Yours in an excellent point as to our G.P.. Happily we both have the same G.P. and I intend we both seek a joint consultation with her very soon after the clinic and certainly before the clinic to review and decide on treatment. I hope we shall both attend those subsequent clinics together.
Good idea for my wife to join the forum. She does not like typing and I think she might prefer a PC support group. I am rather deaf and might not find a group helpful – but I would try it for her sake and mine.
Thank you for your best wishes. Adversity makes friends faster than easy times.
George
User
Hi Chris
Your “Sorry to meet you here” brought a rye smile to my lips. Yes, indeed, happy it would be if I were the only one in the forum and all of you had no need to join. I was happy before I found an urgent need to seek a forum to help me out of my black anxiety. But given that PC had struck at your happiness I am glad there are so many reaching out their hand to help me.
Note taking: good point thanks. Please see my reply to Sandra.
That is a good point for me, Chris. Keep my focus on what is before me today and away from the ‘might bees’ that may never happen. One day at a time, unpoisoned by an imaginary future. A useful therapy would be to learn how to help my fellow PC sufferers. And you are right, I have only as yet been identified as a possible PC sufferer and one without felt symptoms at that.
Many thank for your best wishes
George
User
UPDATE
Hello all
We went shopping and while in the car had a brief conversation. My wife is confident that the result will be nothing “nasty”. She was not too keen on a joint consultation with the G.P. as there would be nothing to talk about. I reminded her that even with a clear biopsy a problem might have been missed. She replied that I would in any case be having regular checks. Her shopping included unusually a number of organic products, so she is responding to the situation.
I did not guess correctly what her reaction might be. Probably involving her more closely once I have the results will work quite well. And then take it from there.
Thank you all for your help. Unless something else happens my next update will be after I get the results.
George
User
Hi George,
Just a quick note ref you being the head secretarial honcho in you house and being deaf. If you ask politely most GPs do not object to having their consultations recorded on a dictaphone. I am sure that if you explained your situation your GP and later your consultant will quite happily agree to this which will allow you more time to go over what was said and believe me there will be much that was said which passed by in the night so to speak.
Best of luck
Barry ( alias Barrington )
User
In the event my wife did and does not want to be involved in the detail. She just wants the main points plus what else comes out in conversation etc. As to my secretarial efforts, they were not needed. The points were clear and decision easily made. The meeting was imeadiately followed up by the MacMillan nurse who had been sitting in. She wrote down the facts and took me through a pack of booklets. All very satisfactory - except that I have Prostate Cancer but hope that it will be cleared by radiotherapy.
Thank you all for your help and wisdom.
George
User
Dear George
Everyone deals with things in different ways and maybe this is the only way that your wife can deal with this at the moment. She wants to know the main points and not worry about the details. She may ask you for more information as time goes by.
Of course, if you need to talk there are lots of people here who will discuss the 'details' with you.
All the best
Alison x
User
Hi George
From your brief update I assume that the results indicate that you have Pca and that the recommended treatment is radiotherapy? Her ally this inlcudes (I'm sure someone will correct me) hormone therapy for a while too. It must have been very hard to hear this news, for you and your wife. Please do ask the MacMillan nurse any questions you may have on the diagnosis and treatment, they are better at explaining (I found) than the doctor.
Good luck with the treatment, I assume this means that they believe a cure is possible.
Best wishes
Alison
User
Good luck and best wishes George to both of you.
I said she'd be a trouper didn't I.
We wives and partners do our best. But - we can only do what you men will let us.
For some of us at least, protecting us from the nitty gritty of it all doesn't really work. For others, like your wife, it's a slice at a time.
Sandra
We can't control the winds - but we can adjust our sails |
User
George,
My husband was diagnosed with PCa on 23rd July 2013. He could not urinate, so I took him to the local
hospital, where they unblocked him, did a scan, gave him some anti-biotics, and told him to see his GP,
which we did 2 days later. They gave him a Digital rectal exam, and did a blood test.
We were then on holiday for three weeks, and gave no more thought to it.
When we came back, his surgery phoned and asked us to come to see GP as soon as possible.
Then followed a series of test, which it sounds as if you have experienced. His final diagnosis was
advanced prostate cancer. Since then he has been on continuous hormone therapy. His PSA has been
rising slowly, and we have to make sure his consultant keeps us informed!
The reason I am boring you with all this, is that I have been with him from the beginning, at all times, to
remember what is said, to hold his hand after hospital appointments, and to reassure as much as I was
able.
I could not have endured not knowing what he was going through. I would let your wife into all this stress
and trauma you have undergone. I know my husband is grateful for my support.