Before my surgery I was told incontinence would last about 6 months. I'm now at 21 months and leaks are a fact of life for me. Cough, sneeze, exercise too much and boom. My surgery was a little more extensive than what I've heard from others, and I had 39 radiation treatments at 13 months that seemed to set me back a bit.

I was given a medication for incontinence, but United Healthcare denied it and they gave me something else - tolterodine tartrate - that doesn't seem to work as well. I had physical therapy but that was done by phone because the therapist office was in Chicago.

My cancer is undetectable from Gleason 9, so I'm happy to be disease free for however long that lasts. I've looked at the incontinence as the price of not having active cancer. I'd prefer not to wear a pad every damn day but if that's the tradeoff, I'll accept it.