@heavyphil That’s what’s interesting about prostate cancer diagnosis and treatments - It allows for approaching similar problems from different directions (sometimes leading to different treatment decisions) - and then having to live with that decision.

For my prostate cancer related decisions, I let the numbers guide me - for better or for worse - to a conclusion. I wouldn’t look at staying on any particular treatment - unless the numbers and test results clearly indicated so. (I think this defines my philosophy on decision-making in general, because I eat, live, and breathe numbers.)

Especially given the inherent uncertainty of different pathologists’ experienced and educated opinions of interpreting biopsy slides - “one man thinks he sees one thing on a slide; another sees something else” - my nature is to take the more cautious approach (i.e., treat to the higher number).

Similarly, taking the more cautious approach and taking known precautions significantly minimizes the risks of “plunging down the rabbit hole of treatment, with all its SE’s, warts and all” (of which as a result, I experienced few).

I knew that at some point my “we’ll see” must become actionable. After 9 years on active surveillance (of which the last 3 years were spent taking a deep dive investigating and evaluating treatment options), I knew that I had to have an actionable plan in place for if/when a treatment decision had to be made.

It was that same numbers-guided decision-making process that for me, has made this just another medical decision to be made - no differently than I would do any other.