@klw23 The way I pushed through to the treatment decision was through introspection…. what did I want out of this?

I had told my physicians early-on that quality-of-life and successful treatment were equal priority for me. (They are not mutually-exclusive; you can have both.) That set the basis for us working together and agreeing on a treatment plan.

I wanted to balance quality of life with survival (of course!) along with the possibility of treatment in the future if needed (as medical treatments progress). This was about utilizing the best treatment techniques to get the best outcome while still surviving and maintaining my quality of life. (Every medical-related decision I ever made I made the same way; why not this?)

With success rates - between surgery and radiation - being statistically equivalent, it all comes down to side-effects and quality-of-life.

So, I put together a spreadsheet and listed across all available treatment options. Then listed down all possible & possibilities (%) of side-effects from each type of treatment, and gave each one a numerical score. The one with the lowest total “score” ranked highest. We then took that list, and narrowed it down based on the preventions available related to each individual type of treatment.

I then “scored” the quality of life priorities that came out of my introspection, and compared that final score result with the treatment options score result.

The score that was closest matching was my 1st choice, 2nd closest was my 2nd choice, etc.

Surgery ranked last —> SBRT next to last —> then IMRT —> finally, Proton ranked at the top.

I wound up having 28 sessions of proton radiation + 6 months of ADT. It wasn’t a difficult decision, just time-consuming.

If you do the analysis, the numbers will clearly show the pathkla The way I pushed through to the treatment decision was through introspection…. what did I want out of this?

I had told my physicians early-on that quality-of-life and successful treatment were equal priority for me. (They are not mutually-exclusive; you can have both.) That set the basis for us working together and agreeing on a treatment plan.

I wanted to balance quality of life with survival (of course!) along with the possibility of treatment in the future if needed (as medical treatments progress). This was about utilizing the best treatment techniques to get the best outcome while still surviving and maintaining my quality of life. (Every medical-related decision I ever made I made the same way; why not this?)

With success rates - between surgery and radiation - being statistically equivalent, it all comes down to side-effects and quality-of-life.

So, I put together a spreadsheet and listed across all available treatment options. Then listed down all possible & possibilities (%) of side-effects from each type of treatment, and gave each one a numerical score. The one with the lowest total “score” ranked highest. We then took that list, and narrowed it down based on the preventions available related to each individual type of treatment.

I then “scored” the quality of life priorities that came out of my introspection, and compared that final score result with the treatment options score result.

The score that was closest matching was my 1st choice, 2nd closest was my 2nd choice, etc.

Surgery ranked last —> SBRT next to last —> then IMRT —> finally, Proton ranked at the top.

I wound up having 28 sessions of proton radiation + 6 months of ADT. It wasn’t a difficult decision, just time-consuming.

If you do the analysis, the numbers will clearly show the path.