Get your PSA checked.

[Lynn]

Although this is a public service announcement, that is not the PSA I am talking about.
PSA = Prostate Specific Antigen. I have been in amazingly good health all my life. I have gone 10 years and more at a time without visiting or even calling a Doctor. Thankfully for me, Sherri made me start yearly check-ups. Also, thankfully my primary physician (looks like he graduated high school about 4 years ago… but I digress) paid careful attention to the blood work. I really did not believe I was at risk for cancer. Even though my father went through four bouts of four different cancers over 14 years, after finding out (8 years after he died) that he spent a full year in Japan immediately after the bombs were dropped. So, I attributed his etiology to his 12 month continuous exposure to the radiation.

Had routine blood work done in August. Doc calls and says he is leary of my PSA count. Wants me to abstain from sex for a week (sick bastard) and have more blood drawn. I oblige. It is even higher the second time. Something is amiss here. Sends me to a prostate Doc. Prostate Doc schedules me for a biopsy (mild form of medieval torture). In September we find out I definitely have prostate cancer and that my prostate is the size of a baseball. And, the cancer is aggressive (they have a little chart that lets them know how fast it is spreading).

November 13 I have a radical robotic prostatechtomy with every attempt to spare all the nerves that allow little Lynn to perform all the marital gymnastics he has grown accustomed to. 4.5 hours of surgery. Prostate has grown to softball size with an extension growing into my bladder. They took the two closest lymph nodes as a precaution.

Good news: no cancer on any margin, and no cancer in the lymph nodes. No need for radiation or chemo. I now have a 99% chance of full recovery. Bad news: apparently all the extra work on my bladder required the catheter to be in for 30 days instead of the normal 10. I developed a post op infection from hell that put me back in the hospital. Just barely got home for Christmas. Unbelievable pain in the lower abdomen area. Could not get in and out of a chair or bed by myself. Second good news: doing much better now. I am so lucky to be married to an angel. She takes such good care of me.
I have shared some of this with just a few guys on this board. I wanted to share with the rest of you, because I feel it is important to get checked yearly after 50. I am turning 65 this month.

Here is the weird part. You see all these commercials on TV about guys who can’t take a leak normally. Given the size of my prostate (should be smaller than a golf ball) one would expect I would have had some of those symptoms. I had none of the symptoms you would expect. Pee’d normally, normal stream, never had an issue fully emptying my bladder. Rarely got up more than once a night to pee. Some guys develop an enlarged prostate even without cancer.

So, get checked even if you have no symptoms. Had we not caught this early, I could have been dead in another year, and not known until I started feeling exhausted, that I had prostate cancer that spread to the lymph nodes and was killing me. I found out the day of my biopsy, that one of my cousins’ husband died two days earlier…. from prostate cancer. He was 67 and had no symptoms until it was too late.

Get checked. If you wait until you have symptoms, it may be too late.

[kwhizz]

Went thru the same thing 8 years ago.........Robotic Surgery is the Bomb.....Everything perfect since then........PSA non detectable..........You are right about the Blood Tests.....So simple with todays Technology.................

Ken

[ZLP955]

Wow Lynn..... quite the ordeal, but very glad to hear you're expecting a full recovery. Thanks for the timely reminder to get checked out.

[Xplantdad]

Glad to hear all is going well Lynn with you and you are now doing better. Thanks for the reminder. I just had my test last year...along with the colonoscopy....

[Lynn]

Bruce: colonoscopy: another medieval torture. Not so much the procedure, but the day before.
Looks like now they have a very simple test that is not so invasive. I plan to talk to my doc about doing that one yearly, and going 5 yr. increments on the colonoscopy. Will see what he says.

Hope Holly is doing well. Did I even spell her name correctly? Our 23 year old is still doing well after his transplant in 2012. Now, we are waiting on a kidney transplant for my son in law. I really like him. He is almost good enough for my daughter!

[Salvatore]

Glad it all worked out Lynn. Colonoscopy the end of January. I hate the evening before!!

[wheelhop]

I too was diagnosed with prostate cancer this summer. It was caught early and not considered the agressive type. I was told I had 3 choices, surgery to remove prostate, direct beam radiation, or Brachytherapy(radioactive seed implants). At age 56 it was still recommended I have my prostate removed using "DaVinci" robotic surgery. I did my research and talked to a lot of other men who had the surgery, others who had direct beam radiation and also others who used the Brachytherapy. There is a wonderful facility within a mile of my house called the Chicago Prostate Center which specializes in the Brachytherapy procedure and is the only facility in the country that is solely dedicated to prostate cancer. I opted for this type of treatment and had my radioactive seed implant procedure on August 24th. On December 20th, 2017 I had my first PSA test and my numbers had dropped significantly from 8 down to 1.5.
Like Lynn said, if you're over 50 get yourself checked out every year. A simple blood test can save your life.

[Lynn]

Originally Posted by [email protected]

Glad it all worked out Lynn. Colonoscopy the end of January. I hate the evening before!!

Ya gotta do what you gotta do, right Sami? It will all come out all right in the end.

[Charley Lillard]

Wow..there is nothing worse than the Colonoscopy prep...just did it a few months ago. Now I have to do it every year.. Lynn. Go to Facebook and look up Cannabis oil success stories...lots of good info out there. I have a good friend that was sent home to die of liver cancer. When he got home his sons buddie said he could cure it with Marijuana.. HE took two gel caps of concentrated oil every night for 6 months and his cancer is gone. There might be something you can do that will also help. Marijuana is still federally illegal so there is not much in the way of controlled studies but at some point there will be. Try to keep a open mind. Good luck moving forward. Scary stuff.

[DW31S]

My wife runs the Urology clinic at Johns Hopkins so I am fully aware of all facets of Prostate cancer and what can be done to combat it. A world renowned doc, who is a past Chairman of the Urology Dept. is the brilliant man sent from heaven who discovered the nerves that let men (and their spouses/partners) still have quality of life after Prostate removal. Until that discovery, things were “soft” because those nerves were severed during surgery. Several other docs have tracked patients and can now quantitvely evaluate the growth of the cancer (not 100%, but darn near), and make recommendations based on that data.
Guys (and their gals), please get checked every year. Our age group is the most vulnerable, but with proper physicals life as we know it can go on. This is no laughing matter.