My Dad was just diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer

Welcome and so sorry it was necessary for you to come here. The answer to your question depends on what type of oncologist he's seeing. (medical oncologist, radiation oncologist, genito-urinary oncologist...) May I ask how he was diagnosed?

Sure wish you had provided some information about what they told you about your father’s case.

Weakness is not a normal symptom of prostate cancer. Of course, if the cancers has been allowed to spread something like that could happen.

Normally, the fatigue comes from taking the ADT drugs that they prescribed for people With prostate cancer.

How old your father is, is an important piece of information. If he’s in his 80s, then treatment may not be the same as somebody who is a lot younger.

At the first appointment, blood tests are probably what they do to find out what’s going on. It’s possible to do a biopsy, but it would be better for somebody who’s Elderly To have a PSE test to see if there is cancer before I actually Doing a biopsy or giving drugs that are gonna make life much harder.

Tell us more about what you find out about his case and we can give you more assistance with treatment options.

Most prostate-cancer treatments wouldn't prevent your father from visiting your mother in the nursing home. If he ends up getting chemotherapy, he might want to be extra careful for a little while (while his immune system is weakened) if there are any outbreaks in the home like influenza, COVID-19, etc, and if he gets Pluvicto, he wouldn't be able to lie right in the bed with her for a few days, but otherwise, I don't see any barriers.

Assuming that he's elderly and already weak (from old age?), however, it's unlikely they'd give him any strong treatments like those unless he pushed for them. Instead, they may offer so-called "palliative" treatments just to slow the cancer's progression and reduce pain while avoiding stronger side-effects that might be too much for him.

I suggest that you bring a pen and paper to his appointment and take lots of notes. It's OK to ask the oncologist to slow down, or to stop and repeat something, or even to spell it out. There will be complex choices that he has to make, and the more you both understand about the pros and cons of each choice, the better.

Best of luck!

sunflower64, so sorry about your dad.
At your urology appointment they will order more testing. They'll probably refer you to a Surgical Oncologist, Radiation Oncologist and maybe a Medical Oncologist. Most commonly, it will be several months to treatment. During that time he'll probably take an oral testosterone inhibitor. But there won't be anything to prevent him seeing your mom. He's worried about her. Such a sweet heart.

Yes, he called me on a Sunday and said he couldn’t walk. I flew down the next morning and took him to ER.. his alk phos level was 2,500.. they did blood work at ct scans of legs, pelvic, chest. He has legions on both hips and top of thigh bones.. white all through the scans.. his bladder and rectum have not been touched. The prostate was very large with a large clump attached to it. He was admitted and had a urologist come in and bone marrow taken. Oncologist came in to go over the ct scans and psa.. he started Dad on hormone therapy to suppress the testosterone. He now meets with the oncologist team of radiation, urology and oncology.

Wow, that's a tough day. ALP of 2500 is pretty high prompting them to sample the bone marrow as this often is an indicator of metastatic or primary bone cancer. I would assume that at the oncology meeting, they will have the results of the testing of that sample and should know what type of cancer they are treating. (whether it's metastatic prostate cancer or primary bone cancer or another form of metastasis) Given the implementation of hormone therapy, it would appear their suspicion is that it is metastatic prostate cancer, or they already have the results and know it is. You didn't mention it, but I would suspect a high PSA? Once they have identified the disease, they will develop and present a treatment and/or palliative care plan. His age and general overall health condition will play a role in that process. More testing such as biopsy or PSMA PET scan may or may not be involved. I would expect that presentation at that oncology appointment.

Thank you! Yes his PSA was 73

Thank you for mentioning palliative care! That was in my thoughts