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When it was noticed that the PSA was rising again after surgery, the surgeon pointed out that it wasn't always possible to get every single microscopic piece of the prostate. He, quite correctly and logically, pointed out that there is no dashed line that says "cut here."
Yes, I'm scheduled to start Lupron this week. We'll have the PSA results from last week and be able to compare them to my last one (July last year, I believe it was a 1.6) to see how aggressive things are.
I plan on asking about Salvage Therapy. It apparently works good in some situations - which is part of why I've posted these questions. My first radiation was Xray, so I'm thinking that the Proton might not be as bad for me as having two Xray based radiation treatments. As far as I can tell, other than this PCa I'm in good health (although I probably should drop 30 lbs,) so this might be a reasonable course of action. We'll see.
I will turn 60 in about a month. It's been about 11 years since my original diagnosis. I honestly can't remember if it was mid 2009, late 2009, or maybe even very early 2010. I'm pretty sure I was 49 so that would put it into that range. I know for sure that my radiation started the very first week of 2011. At the time of the original diagnoses, we confirmed via biopsy (that was a weird experience!) that there was definitely cancer in my prostate. However, the general impression I got from every medical person I talked to (Urologist, surgeon, radiologist) was that we'd caught the cancer very early and things looked good. I can't remember my Gleason at all.
I've identified who my surgeon was and I'm going to contact his office tomorrow in the hope that maybe, just maybe, they still have my records. I will also see if I can find the Dr. in charge of my radiation and hope that possibly he might still have records. I don't remember ever hearing about a "positive margin" (or any margin for that matter).
I've read about intermittent ADT and that sounds good - although I know I'll have to be on the Lupron for a while to lower and then stabilize my PSA first and see what happens.
