Rumination

You really didn’t tell us much. What was your Gleason score? What did they find in the biopsy and in the biopsy of the prostate after the surgery?

How high has your PSA risen?

You need to get a PSMA pet scan to see if there’s anything visible on your scan.

I know people who have had Gleeson nine prostate cancer and are still alive after 30 years. The treatments today are much better than they were in the past and the drugs available are much better.

I’ve had prostate cancer for 15 years and I have a genetic problem called BRCA2 Which causes it to keep coming back. My father died of prostate cancer, and my brother has it, But with today’s drugs and treatments, we can live a very long time with the proper treatment.

There are a lot of people who are filled with anxiety like you are. The first few years I was diagnosed I kept wondering, how long was I going to live and did I have five years?

Give us some more information about your case and maybe we can help Help.

One thing you might want to consider is going to the ancan.org advanced Prostate cancer weekly meeting tomorrow. If you go to the website, you can find out more about it. They can help you go over what your cancer results are and give you some advice. They’ve been helping people for 15 years and your case is probably one where they can help give you some comfort. You do need GoTo meeting Installed to attend the meeting. The meeting starts at 3 PM Pacific time tomorrow, It’s two hours. If you get there 10 minutes early, you will be one of the first people they will talk to

We are all humans who have made past mistakes.

Isn't the question today when we look at ourselves in the mirror, what action are we going to take now to improve our life?

More specifically, what action will I take today to fight against my prostate cancer?

Sometimes we all need someone else to remind us of that reality. If you don't have someone in your life now to help you with that perspective, consider seeking help from a person with that expertise. That could be a fellow prostate cancer patient or a psychologist with this specific expertise.

I had PSA test in 2015. It was 0.47 and then my PCP retired. Never got another one until 2025. I figured with my extensive family history of heart disease and the fact that I have heart failure, PCa was the least of my worries. Anyway, went to PCP because of some back pain. Turns the pain was from renal failure caused by urine retention due to prostate cancer. (Gleason 9, PSA 30+, mHSPC) Never got to the rumination part. The past is already gone. I was just plain pissed. Works better for me. Good luck, my friend. Get pissed at the cancer, not yourself, and fight like hell.

Hey Ken, take heart - we all ruminate although some may call it by different names. I beat myself up all the time - rookie mistakes that make me want to cringe at my own stupidity and poor judgement.
Throw in Lynch Syndrome and you have a full time job trying to stay on top of all the different cancers that may kill you!
Try not to hate yourself over something you probably had less control over than you think…and instead, focus on hating and beating the cancer. THAT is the enemy - not you…
Phil

While hindsight is always 20/20, the reality is rumination doesn’t change what has passed or what is yet to come, but certainly robs us of today. Easier said than done, I know; I have to remind myself of the same almost daily. Focus on the here and now, with a professional counselor to help guide you if needed, and remind yourself, too, that advancing treatments in PCa continue to evolve rapidly.

I feel for you. Part of forgiveness, is forgiving yourself. You/we can't change the past...we can only deal with the present and plan as best we can for the future. Continue to listen to and follow your physician's counsel.
One of the hardest things about prostate cancer is that there is no real sign or symptoms until it is quite advanced, often in the terminal phases. We don't get a lump or puckering/discoloring of skin...we don't grow weak/anemic and winded...we don't lose weight...we don't have night sweats...we mostly feel "normal." But...
We "all" get the news after our doctor tells us that we have an elevated PSA, and on DRE that he feels a "ridge" or a "bump", or an atypical feature of your prostate. Only then do we get the biopsy and the bad news to follow: we have prostate cancer.
I think a lot of men fall into the simple traps of being busy with career, wife, kids, and other activities. Many forget that there may be a familial history of prostate cancer and that we will likely be prone to it as well. Many men just don't go to the doctor, again because we are often too buy ("I'll go next month"..."I'll make an appointment soon.").
I fell into a mental laziness about it. My long-term physician of twenty years died in a car crash. Within 6 months, another physician bought the practice. He seemed like a good physician. Just before my physician had died, I was diagnosed as a Type II Diabetic. My attention and efforts easily leaned toward managing that through a separate physician. Then one day I called for an appointment with the physician who had bought the practice from the estate of the physician who had died. No one answered the phone. I tried the next day...same thing. I kept calling for a week with no answer. I was surprised there was no voicemail like: "We are closed for a vacation and will resume scheduling patients in two weeks" (or some such thing). Then, being busy, I forgot about it...for a long time. Several months later, close to a year later, I called again - no answer/no message. I the DROVE to my physician's office. There was a white metal lab specimen pickup box hanging on the door like it was after hours. It conveyed activity to me. It wasn't the lunch hour nor "end of day." I wiggled the door knob - locked. I then walked into the medical office of the physician next to my physician, and I asked what they could tell me? They said: "Oh...he closed his practice months ago and moved back to his original practice in the desert." I was shocked, aghast, that a physician with a practice would shut down his practice, and not send a letter or e-mail to all of his patients, saying that he was closing his practice...AND...with the recommendation of a few physicians to whom he was referring us for continued care into the future. So...nothing...this guy just packed up and left the area without telling us. Worse yet, I just sort of forgot that I am a man and need to have an annual PSA. Suddenly it was four years later. I found a new physician, but "new patients" never get in for appointments right away. I had to wait NINE (9) months before my new doctor saw me. When I explained that I had not had a PSA in what was now 3.5 - 4 years or so, he ordered one. "Bingo"..."bad news"... my PSA was 6.1 ng/ml. Not "horrible", but certainly cause for concern. Off I went for by biopsy last mid-December with the result of Gleason 3+4 =7 with just 6-10% "4" cells. My urologist was confident: "we caught it early...you'll be fine." But he said: "I'm taking your prostate...no use doing active surveillance...you have cancer. Then, I had my DaVinci Robotic-assisted Radical Prostatectomy in mid-April. The surgical pathology report yielded more ominous features and cellularity: Extraprostatic Extension ("EPE"), therefore, "surgical margins", cribriform glands, and slight invasion into my left seminal vesicle. I went from "you'll be fine, we caught this early" to "it seems that you have a more aggressive form of cancer, and we'll need to talk about radiation." My doctor held off so far because my first PSA, 3-months post-op was where we want it to be < 0.1 ng/ml. My urologist wants to wait three more months to see if the PSA stays at < 0.1 ng/ml or if it increases to 0.2 ng/ml or greater.
So...ALL of this because I had a flake physician close his practice and not tell me he was doing so, and me distracted/focused on managing my diabetes, and being flat-out brain-dead, for four years before I realized that I need a PSA...actually three years, but had to wait those nine months to see my new Internist physician. My cancer could have been caught much earlier when it was a Gleason 3+3 = 6, or less... or with a PSA of maybe only 3-4 ng/ml in the upper end range of normal.
So, now that I am one of the unlucky 10-20% that have surgical margins with a pT3b classification prostate cancer because it entered my left seminal vesicle, I have to wait and worry the rest of my life as to "when" it is going to reoccur. A pT3b has an extremely high rate of recurrence despite the prostate, seminal vesicles and vas deferens all being removed. With surgical margins (cancerous tissue left behind in me) and being a pT3b level, my urologist said it "will" come back "within" five years...it could be next month, next year, or maybe in the full five years, but it is very highly predicted to reoccur." "Oh great." So...my message is, you can't dwell on the past...what is done is done. Ya...we can be angry, but it doesn't change anything. Don't ruminate...it does your soul no good. Just stay focused in the present and on the future. All we can do is trust God and rely on our urologist to be skilled and do the right things at the right times. Good luck.

I think it’s a natural response to want to blame someone or something or even ourselves when cancer arrives on the scene. It helps the mind make sense of something we just can’t wrap our brains around. I’ve experienced it and seen others go through it. Usually this blaming phase passes and we get back to a more productive state of mind. It’s hard! When I talked to my PCP ( back when
my husband was first diagnosed and I was crying in his office) he looked at me and said “you are grieving”. He was right. The grieving, rumination, blaming, etc. eventually passed and we stopped looking back and started looking forward. There are great doctors, great treatments, and new discoveries in cancer care all the time. I wish you peace.

@rlpostrp - wow, I can relate! My female urologist -whom I adored after restoring my ability to urinate - was forced out of practice by a hospital takeover.
I was so angry that I didn’t go to a urologist for about 18 months even though my PSA was over 4.0 - that rookie mistake that cost me dearly.
But in retrospect I often wonder if a year might have made any difference at all. There are just SO MANY factors involved in what stage PCa is caught in, what can really be gleaned from scans and how ‘successful’ treatment will be.
You gotta just go with the flow and not make too big a deal of your own impact in the actual scheme of things. What will be, will be.

Lot's of wise comments...Don't have more to add other than 2nd them.
My best wishes and warm hugs...

Don't look back! The past is history. Continue to do today, what you can to control your cancer.