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Terry:
It's a fantastic thing that you've done with YANA. Like George this was the first place I found that gave me hope. I'm only a few months into my diagnosis, but I'm very much hoping to be posting something similar to yours in quite a few years time.
Your route has been a singular one, but one taken only after rigorous research and sensible consideration. That's the lesson I take from it.
Aug 18, 2008.....Terry, an interesting side note that I am a year today finding out that I had Prostate cancer as well. I "celebrated" the day for the both of us by fishing for the elusive Brown Trout and had a spectacular day. Yes, there is life after hearing your name and cancer in the same sentence.
Mike
Congratulations Terry.Your calm and clear thinking has been an inspiration. My own memorable date was in November 2006. If only I had known then what I have learned since! I watched and waited with PSA of 1.75 and Gleason 3+3 in 4 needles out of 34 (yep 34 in 2 biopsies) with less than 5 per cent positive in 2, and 2 per cent in the other two,for 9 months and then panicked myself into surgery. One botched robotic later and now I am doing the watching and waiting I should have done in the first place. To add insult to injury (literally!), the top man I now have thinks that my post op pathology suggests that I had insignificant cancer.
Talk about sledgehammers to crack nuts - even if they are walnuts!
Yes, yours is a terrible story - and I place the blame firmly at the door of 'surgery addicted' urologists.
I thank my lucky stars that my tumour was so advanced, because if I had been diagnosed very early on, I too would probably have been panicked into having the prostate removed.
The urologist who did my biospy is notorious for pushing guys towards removal. My brother-in-law was diagnosed 6 months after me, with a pretty low set of numbers, and he rang me in panic after he was advised to have the operation.
By then I had learned enough about options to be able to show him all the choices available. He opted for brachytherapy and is still doing very well four years later.
A few years ago I posted on Yana and on other international sites a question about just how many men with PCa were treated solely by urologists. The response was shocking. Huge numbers of men around the globe never get to see an oncologist speacialising in PCa.
We have all read story after story about the awful side effects which can occur after surgery - and just how often the cancer isn't eradicated anyway, meaning PSA rises again, and choices become limited and dangerous.
I am deeply saddened - and angry when I read how a guy like yourself has been treated.
