Hi, welcome to the group and so sorry you found it necessary to join. I was just diagnosed in May so I'm far from old hat at this but... You are at the "I don't know what I don't know" part of this journey. It's not time to worry yet. Don't let worry rent space in your head. It has no useful purpose other than to ruin your ability to sleep. As others have said, there is a "standard of care" process. The first phase is of that process is diagnostic. The reality of this phase is that no matter what initial scans say, the only way to know, for sure, if you have PCa, or not, is biopsy. I was hospitalized last spring for renal failure caused by urine retention due to (unknown at the time) PCa. 2 CT scans, an MRI, and 2 ultrasounds came back negative with zero mention of possible malignancy. A few weeks later, biopsy came back with 12 of 12 cores involved.

Once that diagnostic phase is over, you'll have a choice how to handle it. If no cancer, congratulations and get on with your life. If cancer is present, you can worry (which still does absolutely nothing to help) or you can do what I did and just get plain pissed off at the cancer and fight it. Learn everything you can about it and then get on with your life. You're at Johns Hopkins. That's a pretty darn good place to be if you end up having to fight.

As far as back pain, I can empathize. I ruptured a disc @ L4/L5 probably playing golf. In June, a PSMA PET scan identified a metastasis on L5. Back pain is part of life for me at this point, but the tumor will get zapped if my next scan does not show improvement and inversion traction keeps the disc in check. Maybe if you let your doc know about the pain, he can order a full lumbar scan while you're in the MRI anyway. At least then you'll know if you blew a disc or not and if so, get some PT to help. Best wishes and just keep in mind that a positive PCa diagnosis doesn't end life. It just changes it up a bit.