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Year of Firsts: Your Experiences

Prostate Cancer | Last Active: Jan 28 8:55am | Replies (15)

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@heavyphil

Hey, I went back to your original post in Dec of ‘24. You were a Gleason 7 with a higher .68? Decipher score. Many posts/suggestions have been offered in the meantime and here we are with you scheduled for surgery, but every fiber in your being is telling you NOT to have it.
So what were the reason(s) for choosing surgery over SBRT (Cyberknife/ MRI Meridian), IMRT with ADT or TulsaPro? The side effects with those are much more limited and less severe than with surgery (IMO!). And the long term outcomes exactly the same.
So why are you doing surgery ? - your age and “chance” of recurrence is the only thing that justifies it in my mind. Just askin’…

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Replies to "Hey, I went back to your original post in Dec of ‘24. You were a Gleason..."

I did inquire into those, no doctor (and I spoke to a few of them) felt those were better alternatives than surgery. Also, with surgery, the entire prostate can be removed and biopsied to see how serious it really is - and removal is the only effective way to know that for certain. With the Decipher score they feel confident that it is worse. Additionally, the MRI shows it has a bulge, which indicates the possibility of either it has left the prostate or it will. These factors make removal a good option, still leaving the door open for additional treatment options later.

The bulge is certainly a concern. That bulge has already caused the doctor to be relatively sure (not certain until he's in there) that I'll lose half my nerves. Well, I'd rather have half than none and who is to say that waiting won't cause me to sacrifice the other half?

I have to go with what doctors tell me. I'm not a doctor, nor is anyone here. My doctors aren't quacks, all of them were from cancer centers of excellence with significant PC history under their belts.

Believe me, I've had a lot of anxiety in spurts, and it's so easy to ask if I made the right decision or if I should have traveled elsewhere for newer treatments, but I have to trust my doctors. I've considered not doing anything at all and just letting it runs it's course, but realize that is foolish because I don't know what's on the other end of this - I might be fine or I might be screwed, nobody knows.