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A 15 year Wife's Roadmap to Deal With Your PCa Husband
Your Husband's PSA Is Elevated: A Wife’s 15-Year Roadmap to Mild Panic, Medical Jargon, and Unsolicited Advice from Hans at the Golf Club
It starts, as these things do, with a phone call. He emerges from the bedroom holding his cell like it just informed him of its own terminal illness. “The urologist says my PSA is high,” he announces, eyes wide, voice trembling with the kind of dread normally reserved for tax audits or surprise visits from your in-laws. And just like that, your life changes—not in a dramatic movie-of-the-week kind of way, but in the slow, insidious, paperwork-laden crawl of modern medicine. Congratulations. You’ve just become the unpaid project manager of your husband’s prostate.
Year 0: The Phone Call – aka “Honey, Don’t Freak Out But…”
You’re making dinner (read: heating up leftovers) when your husband walks in, pale as skim milk and holding the phone like it bit him.
“The urologist says my PSA is high.”
Welcome to the club. You didn’t ask to join, but the initiation is fast and free of charge. Your husband is about to become obsessed with acronyms, urine flow charts, and the exact radius of his prostate. You, meanwhile, will Google “PSA” 14 times and then regret it immediately.
Pro Tip: Pour yourself a large glass of wine. This will be a theme.
Months 1-6: The Diagnostic Odyssey – Now With More Probes
Brace yourself for a series of tests, all of which involve either needles, scopes, or a deep and personal relationship with imaging equipment.
There will be:
A biopsy (he’ll whimper like a traumatized otter afterward)
A CT scan (“do I have to fast?” he’ll ask 9 times)
A bone scan ("why the hell are they scanning my bones if it's in my prostate?")
Several highly enlightening but emotionally draining conversations about Gleason scores and cribriform patterns, which you'll pretend to understand
You will nod sympathetically while the urologist explains things in a tone normally reserved for flight safety briefings. Then you will go home and Google everything again.
Helpful Tip: Every man becomes a part-time oncologist during this period. Expect unsolicited lectures on hormone pathways.
Year 1: Treatment Choices – Choose Your Own Adventure (But All Paths Include Side Effects)
Will it be surgery? Radiation? Brachytherapy? Hormone therapy? Cryoablation? Prayer? (You’ll meet a Barbara in the waiting room who swears by wheatgrass and Reiki.)
Whatever you choose, he will now begin a slow, reluctant slide into the land of hot flashes, mood swings, and erectile debates.
“It’s not you, it’s the Firmagon.”
“Yes, dear, I know it’s the Firmagon.”
Wife Survival Tip: Keep your sense of humor. And a fan. For both of you.
Years 2–4: The Hormone Haze – Moody, Sweaty, and Marginally Hairless
Your formerly stoic husband now cries at insurance commercials and gets winded tying his shoes. Sex becomes a fond memory, replaced by arguments over which low-fat yogurt brand tastes less like regret.
You’ll start hearing phrases like:
“Do you think my testosterone is low again?”
“I read on a forum that pomegranate juice helps.”
“Maybe I should try goat yoga.”
This is also the phase where he might purchase highly questionable supplements off the internet and insist they’re “natural.”
Marriage Maintenance Tip: Gently remove the laptop after 11 p.m. Nothing good happens in the prostate forums after midnight.
Years 5–7: The Surveillance Years – PSA, PTSD, and WTF
By now, you’ve both learned to dread the “PSA check.” It’s not a blood test, it’s a mood test for the next three months.
Your job during this phase:
Remind him that a small PSA bump does not mean imminent death
Hide the scale (the ADT weight gain is real and he’s VERY touchy about it)
Distract him with crime shows where at least those men have functioning prostates
Your Motto: “Let’s wait for the doctor to call” (and “Jesus, not this again” under your breath).
Years 8–10: Acceptance, Adaptation, and the Hobby Phase
The cancer is likely stable, slow-moving, or sleeping off the hormone nap. Your husband has taken up a hobby. Woodworking, birdwatching, competitive complaining—whatever fills the void once occupied by testosterone.
You’ll still attend semi-annual urology visits, now conducted by someone born after your wedding anniversary. He’ll still ask, “What’s my PSA again?” even though you texted it to him three times and made a spreadsheet.
New Challenge: He now corrects other men about PSA thresholds at dinner parties.
Years 11–15: The Long Haul – Just You, Him, and That Damned Prostate
You’ve now been to more medical appointments than vacations. He has strong opinions about which nurse draws blood best. You suspect he may be in love with one of the radiation techs.
PSA is low, libido is lower, and the dog gets more cuddles than you do. But you’re still here. Still sarcastic. Still slightly stunned that something the size of a walnut could have dictated the last decade of your life.
“We beat it,” he’ll say.
“No, dear,” you’ll reply. “We endured it. Now go take your Metamucil.”
Final Notes for the New Initiate Wife:
Always pack snacks for the waiting room
Don’t argue with a man on hormone suppression—it’s like fighting fog
And remember: this is a marathon, not a sprint
But if you sprint toward the wine fridge once in a while, no one will blame you.
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OMG you mentioned woodworking as a new hobby. I've spent a couple thousand $$ already on tools for a workshop that doesn't yet exist. I really haven't done any serious woodworking since shop class in high school. I bury myself into absurd projects (learning to play piano in my 60's-- yes, I also bought a keyboard--, learning another foreign language, desgining and helping to build a vacation home, etc.).
For me, my reaction to all this has been a bit odd, and unpredictable. The initial shock, panic, tears, hugs with wife with "I love yous" lasted just a few hours. Then it was time for Google, and I haven't stopped Googling for 5 years.
I really haven't suffered much from all this so far. Sure, there are inconveniences (like peeing, ADT side effects, etc.), but no real pain yet. I suppose that will come in a later chapter...
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1 ReactionAre we twins separated at diagnosis? I, too, have turned my midlife (plus tax) crisis into an elaborate hardware store loyalty program. The only thing I’ve built so far is debt and a suspicious-looking pile of tools that scream “compensation project.” Shop class was my last formal training, too — unless you count YouTube, which, let’s be honest, has turned us all into dangerously confident hobbyists.
As for your reaction? Not odd at all. I think it’s the new normal for guys like us. Initial tears, existential dread, spontaneous declarations of love... and then Google takes over. Google is the new oncologist, therapist, spiritual guide, and self-inflicted panic button. Less than one year in and I’ve practically earned a PhD in prostate cancer, sub-specializing in late-night overthinking.
Also, amen to the weirdness of "not suffering." It’s like waiting for the other shoe to drop, except it’s not a shoe — it’s a lead boot filled with hormone gel and urinary pads. I keep wondering if I’m in some Kafkaesque holding pattern where side effects are doled out by lottery.
At least we have our keyboards, tool addictions, and ambitious projects that make no financial sense. Beats sitting around waiting for the next PSA test to roll in like a bad Yelp review.
Seriously, though, thanks for this — it’s oddly comforting knowing there are other obsessively Googling piano-playing tool hoarders out there, whistling in the radioactive dark.
Well... I do not know now if "woodworking" interest is actually more precise test for PC than PSA test 😉 , since my husband started showing sudden and strong interest in woodworking about 5 years ago and started watching YouTube videos about artisan furniture making and he never even had high-school class in it XP. Unfortunately he is still working full time so no time for fun of that kind :(, or much of any kind and now PC came on top of everything.
His reaction to PC is very reserved, I think he tries to distance himself from it to keep it all together so it is actually me that does all of the googling, panicking, crying , hugging, researching and it is him that gently pulls laptop from my hands at midnight. It is very hard balancing act , I try to protect him from very harsh reality and from reading all of those scary statistics but at the same time I am not sure he is ready now to ask important questions with confidence and understanding at future appointments ? I wish that there is more urgency in his actions and that he is more insistent when he talks to nurses and calls for results etc. but at the same time I do not want him to go into state of panic *sigh
I will take your advice Hans ha ha and make sure that red wine is always at reach, just in case XP.
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2 ReactionsIt sounds like you're carrying the emotional weight for both of you—researcher, advocate, emotional buffer, midnight worrier… and now sommelier, apparently. The woodworking YouTube binge might have been his quiet rebellion against a world spinning out of control—even before the PC diagnosis—so his current cool detachment might just be the same survival mechanism turned up a notch.
You're right to worry that this stoicism might get in the way when real decisions need to be made. But sometimes those who appear detached are quietly absorbing more than we think—they just haven’t figured out how to shape their fear into action yet. You’re doing more than enough by holding the line, but maybe there’s a way to gently transfer the baton, one question or appointment at a time—like handing him a chisel and saying, “Your turn, love. Carve the next piece.”
And yes, keep the wine close. If nothing else, it pairs well with Google-induced panic and existential dread.
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3 ReactionsSteve Ramsey is my current Youtube woodworking guru. I watch all his videos religiously.
I have taken a few of my new tools out of the box and plugged them in to make sure they work.
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3 ReactionsLove your posts H.C. insightful, humorous, poignant, on target, uplifting and depressing at the same time. You have done poetic justice to prostate cancer.
Appreciate it. Prostate cancer takes your hormones, your dignity, and eventually your patience—but at least it gives you material. If I can’t outlive it, I’ll outwit it. One bitter laugh at a time.
I retired a few months ago, I have my "honey do list" at the ready. I have lots of supplies piled up, now just have to get the energy to do the tasks. Also, my carpentry skills are "Measure twice, cut once, go get another board because the dang thing is short. Everyone have a good day. Best to all.
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1 ReactionI have not bought any tools yet but started building the workshop. I built a bird house in high school.
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1 Reaction"built a birdhouse in high school" made me laugh.
But I'm sure it was a fine birdhouse.
I wonder what it is that makes so many of us want to work with wood. There must be some profound psychological explanation.
"Industrial Arts" classes were the only ones I enjoyed in high school. I was pretty messed up in the head, and I eventually got graduate degrees in language and literature. Yes, that messed up.
At any rate, planning my new woodshop gives me several hours of pleasure a week.
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