How to cope with stress/anxiety, waiting for PSA blood test

@psychometric I have been waiting anxiously for monthly or bimonthly PSA results for over nine years. It doesn’t get any easier but you do get used to it. It sounds like you have already figured out your personal antidotes to the anxiety. Good for you!

@tjv1156 asked ❝why did your team say your cancer *will* return?❞

Because I'm stage 4: my cancer had already metastasised to my spine before it was diagnosed.

Received wisdom at the time was that castrate resistance on ADT would last only 18–24 months, then I'd have to progress to other measures like chemo or Pluvicto, and I'd die a couple years after that. But that was before there was as much data from new clinical approaches like starting on an ARSI early instead of waiting for castrate-resistance, treating oligometastatic cancer with "curative intent," etc. Things look much more promising for us now.

This is a timely topic - I have an appointment in a couple of hours to go over my first post-op PSA test. My post-RARP pathology was less encouraging in several aspects (EPE, SVI, large cribriform) than my original biopsy, so the PSA test has perhaps loomed larger than it otherwise would have.

Here is what has helped me not be crushed by PSAnxiety: my Christian faith, including prayer and daily Bible reading, active church membership and fellowship, exercise (primarily running), parenting a middle schooler (!), focusing on and finishing a few side projects at work, encouragement and wisdom from this message board

Here are some things that haven't helped: fixating on this one aspect of my life (i.e., PSA, PCa), spending too much time on this message board trying to predict the future and figure out the optimal way to eat, sleep, take vitamins, etc. etc. etc., and a less-disciplined post-op diet.

I tend to be all-or-nothing so striking a balance between harmful internalizing (whistling in the dark) and constantly researching, talking, thinking, worrying about the dreaded 0.2 ng/mL is not as easy as the two lists above imply, but in general, life seems better when I spend less time thinking about myself. There are numerous ways to do this, some probably more healthy than others. Is it better to serve in my church food pantry than to watch several hours of funny pet videos on YouTube? I don't know - there seems to be a season for everything.

@psychometric I get what you say about spending too much time in this forum looking for answers. For me, it's been the opposite: a way to get out of my own head and provide information and support that might be helpful for others. I wish I'd known about it when I was first diagnosed in 2021, paralysed in a hospital bed. That was a very lonely time, even with my family around me, and I could have used support myself then (I still do, sometimes).

Thank you for your reply. Best of luck to you.