Update: I am still shocked by what happened in my support group session last night. I feel like the doctor presented an overly-rosy profile of the effectiveness of focal therapy and did not convey just how small a group of patients actually are appropriate for focal therapy. He was incredibly convincing and incredibly enthusiastic.

And, then, after I had been convinced by the doctor's presentation that choosing surgery was absolutely the worst decision that I could make, having the person running the session telling me repeatedly that I should cancel my surgery if I wasn’t confident in my decision because focal treatment just might be the best option for me. He even spent some time with my test results to see if I qualified for focal therapy.

So, yeah, I was put on a roller coaster. I reached out to you all and you answered the call. I now feel confident in my decision to go with surgery and that focal is NOT a good choice for my situation.

As it turns out, three months ago during my initial visits, my wife kept notes and dang, both the surgeon and radiation oncologist in those long consultation sessions said that focal options were not appropriate for me. I feel pretty stupid now that I didn't retain those comments, but I truly was in the fog and shock of early diagnosis.

The oncologist said the “advantage to those quasi-experimental treatments is maybe it would work but disadvantage is you lose time to treat and give time for it to spread. There’s not a lot of data on those treatments yet.” The surgeon said, “Focal therapy an option if only just a few cores in one location, but you are probably not a candidate for this based on location.”

I’m in a so much better head space - heartfelt thank you to all.