Ty, your post gives me the opportunity to do a little venting on the general topic of PC...I am sick of this thing predominating my every waking thought, and those of my wife. We are trying to approach this in a pro-active manner, and still maintain some resembelence to a "normal" life, for our son's sake if nothing else.
The whole idea with prostate cancer is to buy time. There is an enormous amount of controversy surrounding the effectiveness of treatments currently available since they can not predict with any accuracy *which* PC tumors are aggressive, ie; likely to spread to the lymph nodes and become systemic, and which ones may lie dormant for years and years, never to cause even the slightest symptoms, much less become life threatening. The clinical "staging" and high PSA are definite statistical indicators, but not neccessarily conclusive by themselves.
I am not a good candidate statistically for "watchful waiting", due to the relative aggressiveness of my tumor, and my age. Statistically, I am a failed case waiting to happen, without some sort of intervention. It seems that *nobody* gets grade 7 and 6 scale tumors at age 42, and the median age for all of these studies on prostate cancer (with 10 year data) is 73....so, were it not for the PSA test, my case would not have been discovered, period. My tumor is not "palpable", meaning that it would not have been evident through a DRE (digital rectal exam) yet the needle biopsy produced a "virtual 100% involvement" in one needle core, and 75% in another. The 100% "hit" was on the apex, which I am now reading is a strong prediction of "extension" of the cancer.
Ok, that was the good news....but seriously, no, screw seriously, this is a bad joke, why it is being played on me, one of the universe's more innocuous puppets, is beyond my capability to reason.
(I just sneaked in my first "why me Lord?")
I woke up this am at 4 o-clock, on my day-off, with the *VERY* first thought to come in my head being related to prostate cancer. I am desparately seeking statistical data *grouped by age* on the ranking of tumors, and have not been able to find it. I don't know why this is so important to me, except to state that I am a database nut, raw numbers are more comforting to me than vague assumptions. I know if I want to play the state lottery that my chances of winning are approx. 1 in 9.5 million. I don't know if the lymph node dissection produces cancer cells, what the chances are of living a decent period of time are, nor does anyone else.
If the analysis of lymph tissue is positive, I am supposed to hand over my balls, literally, so as to slow the growth of cells already presumed to be circulating in my body. It will be left to me to decide of course, and I will be strongly obliged to do so....for my family, so that I can spare them the loss of their beloved father/husband. On a personal level, I am outraged over the inequity of this solution. We can not even ask this of sex-offenders, even though it is proven to effectively curb their appetite for predatory behavior.
I am trying to assess how much of this is vanity, and how much is a natural revulsion to a seemingly barbaric treatment, and trying to quantify "quality of life" vs. the outward appearance of normality. Rest assured, if I am asked to comply, nobody besides myself, my wife, and my doctor will know about it. Some humiliations are simply to great to bear.
There are some strinking parallels between breast cancer and prostate cancer, they hit you in places that ought not to be hit. My thoughts go out to women who have had to undergo radical masectomy only to find a few years down that road that it's not the only option.
To the casual observer, inquire of your family history as to incidence of prostate cancer, if you are +/- 40 years of age, GET YOUR PSA TESTED!!!
Ty, thanks for your support and kind words, this writing has helped me at least twist the finger of this 900lb gorilla this morning. I am looking forward to a moratorium on cancer thoughts in the near future. My lymph node removal (via laproscopy) is scheduled for Feb. 10th, and the seed implants for Feb. 24th, then I have about five years worth of waiting ahead of me to show signs of a "cure". Obviously I can not, and *will* not want to keep this on the front burner that long, I'm sick of it already and haven't even taken the first step down the path of "accepted" treatment.
More later....
Hubert |
