Rich's Journey with Prostate Cancer
Survivor: Prostate Cancer
Patient Info: Finished active treatment less than 5 years ago, Diagnosed: about 11 years ago, Male, Age: 69, Stage IIA
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Procedure: Drag this icon to show a procedure.
Radiation: Drag this icon to show a specific radiation therapy experience.
Drug Therapy: Drag this icon to show a specific drug therapy experience.
Clinical Trial: Drag this icon to show a clinical trial experience.
Side Effect: Drag this icon to show experience with a specific side effect.
Oh No: Drag this icon to show when something bad happened (e.g., cancer’s back, lost job).
Celebration: Drag this icon to show when something good happened (e.g., last treatment, hair is back).
Loss: Drag this icon to show a time of loss (e.g., lost hair, lost loved one).
Decision Point: Drag this icon to show a time when you had to make a tough decision.
Other Care: Draft this icon to show a time when you needed other care (e.g., hospice, psychotherapy).
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Radical perineal prostatectomy
Procedure or Surgery
Surgery recovery was about a month and I am in decent shape to that seemed like a long time. Urinary recovery continues after 5 months but is getting progressively better. Erection recovery isn't going well and my doctor and I are moving on to phase 2 of options to improve the situation.
Diagnosed
Oh No
I was expecting something totally different than cancer when I went into my doctors office for the results of my biopsy. When he said cancer I almost fell over
Bladder problems
Side Effects
It has taken 5 months to get urinary leakage down to almost but not quite zero. Still it is better than cancer!
Erection problems
Side Effects
58 y/o and virtually no erections post surgery. Low dose Cialis (5mg) per day didn't help. Supplementing that with 10 mg tabs didn't help. Now we are on to medication injections.
Decision Point
I went to see a urologist first. He said to do the surgery. Then I went to a Radiation Ongologist. He also said to do the surgery in my particular situation which was fairly early cancer probably contained in my prostate. Plus and this was the big thing that I had long term difficulty urinating. He said radiation would make my urinary problems worse for potentially a year or more.
Finished treatment
Celebration
After recovery from the actual surgery and the first 0 PSA my wife and I took a trip around the western U.S. It helped me a lot because I saw that there could be life after cancer