What was your prostate cancer timeline?

(Apologies to anyone who's heard this before.).

Things happened very fast for me

I became aware of a pain in my middle spine around the beginning of September 2021 (age 56). It got worse. Physio didn't help, and the x-ray showed nothing. I started staggering sideways a bit.

A couple of weeks later I was starting to use a cane for balance. The morning of 4 October I woke up and my feet were numb, so I limped into the ER and was immediately admitted to hospital.

On 6 October (2 days after admission), I was informed that the MRI had shown a lesion on my spine of unknown origin, probably cancerous. On 7 October, I had a needle biopsy of the lesion on my spine.

On 8 October (four days after admission), I woke up from a late-afternoon nap and realised I was paralysed below my ribs. In the wee hours of 9 October, I was on the operating table getting 10+ hours of emergency debulking surgery. When I woke up, the surgeon told me it had felt like metastasised prostate cancer, and the biopsy result confirmed that a couple of days later.

I came home from hospital in a wheelchair 3½ months later.

As you'll see, there probably is no "typical" story. Mine is on the extreme side, but all of us at stage 4 ended up getting there by different paths.

I was diagnosed with stage 4 about 9 years after I started treatment. Had surgery and then 3 1/2 years later radiation but it kept coming back, now 14.5 years in. I became resistant to ADT nine years after I was diagnosed. I have been on Zytiga and then Darolutamide and my cancer has been undetectable for the last 10 months.

Your Gleason score is an important factor, mine was 4+3. I also had genetic testing two years ago and it turns out I have BRCA2, which explains why it keeps coming back.

I had genetic testing and was t even told if I had BRCA2. Only that my two sons don’t have the gene, came fromAgent Orange- so what’s BRCA2 mean, maybe it’s my real name abbrev. Bruce. Lol

BRCA1 and BRCA2 prevents your body from correcting DNA damage and can result in pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer (even men), melanoma and other cancers.

I had an aunt and a cousin die from breast cancer, my other aunt had breast cancer but survived, and my mother had nothing but passed it on to me. My grandfather died young from pancreatic cancer.

If you have BRCA cancers tend to get to you younger. They’re not guaranteed however, my mother lived to 86 without cancer.

No one else surviving in my family has BRCA. 50 50 Chance you pass it on.

Because I am someone who didn't do the yearly exams, when I finally went to the doctor for pain in my leg, after testing, I was at stage 4 metastatic to the bones. The question posted is a very good one. I don't remember reading on here of someone who's stage has changed upwards. Best to all.

Unfortunately, if cancer recurs after a prostatectomy or radiation, it can be staged according to the new extent of the disease. Initial staging such as pT3a, which describes the extent of the cancer at the time of surgery, does not change. However, if cancer recurs and spreads to distant parts of the body, it can be classified as stage IV.