Chemotherapy ...Scared

Good for you, buddy. I saw your reply to Colleen and now you can thank your own sound judgement for not listening to those internet trolls.
Also, you echo the sentiments of MANY of us here who pursued a healthy lifestyle, exercised, avoided foods deemed harmful, etc. It doesn’t matter when it comes to PCa!
But take heart in the fact that your otherwise healthy body will be your greatest asset going forward with whatever treatment you choose. You did not waste your time! Both surgery and radiation can exact a toll, but for myself and many others here, we found that our ‘training’ mitigated most of the side effects and enabled our recoveries to proceed at a much faster pace.
You’ve done your part….so please remember to select the VERY BEST doctors so they can do theirs.
Best of luck!
Phil

Hey Phil,

I appreciate your response more than you can ever imagine.
It is a huge relief to hear that the training can play such a key role in this whole crazy process. My urologist alluded to that, but your explanation is much more detailed. I'll keep working out, for sure. For me, it's also a way to burn off some of the aggravation that cancer has created.

One week from tomorrow I have an appointment w/a fairly young physician at The City of Hope. His credentials are impressive, and the staff has been professional, understanding and compassionate.

Thank you again for your response. How are things w/you?

Doug

Hey Doug, So good to hear that your head is in a better place and yes, working out gets a lot of the anxiety, fear and frustration out of your system! It’s really the one thing that you actually can do to take part in your treatment and make a difference.
After my surgery a nurse came into my room and suggested that I get out of bed at some point that day - if I could - and maybe take a few steps around my room just to get moving…
So I gingerly got myself upright, grabbed my IV pole (a bag of Tylenol, a bag of saline, and a catheter bag) and off we went out of the room and all around the hallways of the ward for about an hour. Did it again after lunch to cheers of “Here he comes again!”
Don’t get me wrong, I was in pain and far from joyful during my promenade, but I was gonna do it, dammit! Even at home I started walking on the treadmill slowly after a few days and it gave me a real sense of control or victory or whatever that feeling was.
I think you will do the same or even more and your surgeon ( if you go that route) will appreciate your lean physique and your well defined anatomical landmarks. Surgeons absolutely HATE excess fat and having to negotiate their way through globs of adipose tissue inside your body.
And thank you for asking about my status; doing great a month out from salvage radiation, still pushing thru the fatigue like everyone else. But it’s a new year and a time for hope for all of us! Best of luck with your treatment.
Phil

Phil,

Good morning. Forgive me for the delay.

Thank you for the inspirational account of how things went for you. I imagine the cheers you got after lunch were extremely gratifying.

It’s awesome that you were on the treadmill so soon after surgery.

How are things going now?

I had a consultation with a radiologist, but my primary care physician suggested surgery. I first started going to him about 20 or 25 years ago, and we connected because we both have been in the martial arts.

He suggested surgery because the prostate is replete with cancer.

Are you satisfied that you had surgery, and what type of method did they use?

I called the surgery coordinator yesterday, and she said we are looking at a date in June or July because of the high volume of other patients. It makes me a little nervous to wait that long. If the physician feels like it should be done sooner, But he worked me in prior to those dates?

Again, I apologize for the delay. Update me when you can.

Take care, man.

If you are going to have to wait that long for surgery, you should be on ADT according to doctors I’ve heard from. If they have not offered it to you, you should ask for it. You have to be proactive when you have prostate cancer, Some doctors just don’t move quickly enough. One of the doctors who comes to the Ancan.com Weekly meetings had a urologist who kept telling him everything was OK as his PSA rose. He finally found that he had advanced cancer and a Gleason nine, Because his Urologist ignored The warning signs.

Radiation can completely obliterate your prostate cancer and studies of it have shown that for most people the results are the same if you have radiation or surgery. Of course, if you have surgery, you can have a radiation later to the prostate bed.

Your PCP is not an expert on prostate cancer. Their advice should be taken with a lot of caution. You want to speak to a Genito urinary oncologist or go to a center of excellence To get the best decisions for your treatment.

If your Gleason score is eight or less you might also consider these treatments, They work very well for a prostate that is completely filled with cancer. None of these involve radiation HIFU , Cryoabalation , NanoKnife , TULSA PRO and HoLEP. Many people in this forum have had Tulsa pro.

Hey Bro, what jeffmarc said says it all. You should be on ADT to slow it down NOW.
Also, your PCP is just another man with an opinion - not a specialized one either. If he’s been practicing over 25 yrs, he’s probably hopelessly tainted - thru no fault of his own - with the “when in doubt cut it out” mentality. That WAS the mantra, after all….
Not saying that surgery is inferior to radiation - its outcomes are EQUAL. The advantage to doing surgery first is that, in case of failure, you can do radiation down the line; MUCH more difficult in the reverse.
So I have to say that although I am not thrilled with the surgical side effects, it did get me 5 yrs treatment free - and the opportunity to wrestle it again with radiation and ADT. Like you, my gland was bursting with cancer (literally, in retrospect) so being able to have a surgical pathology report was important to me; you don’t get that, either, with radiation.
So all in all, I am happy and content that my decision (just dumb luck) was the correct one. I am doing very well 2 months out from radiation but still beat to death with fatigue from the Orgovyx.
But I know it will improve so I accept it as the cost of doing business. Please keep us posted on your progress and please PUSH to get on ADT: June is still a long way off!
Phil