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Thank you for having the courage to post this topic. It is indeed a topic that is not discussed as much as it should be. We have all lost friends to this disease and not a week goes by that someone doesn't post to one of the groups that another one has passed away.
For me and perhaps a number of other men this is a terminal disease. My disease was at diagnosis not curable and of grave concern to my urologist. But I am [or perhaps was] an eternal optimist. I would find some way to beat this monster. I would cure my cancer. That attitude gradually was replaced with a more realistic attitude. My goal is to live for another year.
I failed ADT shortly compared to most men. Took about a year. All my oncologist could do is watch my PSA go up. He really was not that effective in treating my disease. In December of 2008 he wanted me to go on to chemo [Taxotere]. I gave it some serious thought. But I eventually decided the odds were not good enough for me. So I discontinued all Lupron and all other androgen treatments and struck out on my own.
Most men will die when their PSA gets to very high numbers. However, I know a few men with PSA in the 5000 range who are alive and in actually good shape. I think that once you go on chemo your chances are not good. Chemo will mess with your bone marrow and your blood counts. For men with bone metastasize our bone marrow is compromised already. Adding Taxotere just makes it worse. For men with bone mets we will likely die when our bone marrow is too damaged.
For the men who have a less serious disease G <7 your prognosis is probably good. you will have to do whatever you can to keep your PSA very low for the rest of your life. If you keep the tumor burden low you will probably not develop mets.
In the light of some of the responses I have received to this post, i have expanded it somewhat to include some of the issues that might be considered in trying to answer the question "How long have I got?"
