Since discovering that I discovered that I had prostate cancer, I told as few people as possible. At work, only my secretary and medical director knew. My medical director is also my personal physician. My wife and two daughters know, and my Swedish daughter, who is a doctor in Sweden, knows. I felt that this was a very personal thing and I’m just not in the habit of sharing personal information. Furthermore, I didn’t want people to have pity on me. Ultimately, I knew I was going to be fine, at least alive, and I didn’t want people inquiring all the time. Besides, how do you go about explaining impotency and incontinence to those you work with every day? Why tell the story now? Maybe I can help somebody who is facing the same fears and anxieties that faced me. I cannot recommend what course or path they should take because we are all different. But at least it may help the understanding of the process and may help them make up their own minds to make the choices they think best.
First, the Bad News
It all started out as a routine physical exam in December of 2007. After having gone decades without seeing a doctor for much of anything, I committed seeing one for a routine physical in my early 50’s. I was very healthy and active and within a normal weight range. I always felt pretty good. During a physical exam about four years ago, I was diagnosed with mild hypertension and started on a one pill a day regimen. The semi-annual checkups were now the routine and this December visit was the latest. Of course, my doctor always throws in one or two other test for good measure. This time it was going to be a PSA test and a digital rectal exam. At a follow-up visit in January, he said the PSA test was around 3.0, which was still in the normal range, but he said that my prostate gland was a little bigger on one side than the other. He was sending me to a local urologist for a biopsy, just in case. “You never know about these things. It could be nothing. Better to check it out than let it go.”
The biopsy and ultrasound were scheduled for mid-February. These are office procedures. The biopsy consists of going up through the rectum and poking through the bowel wall to the prostate gland and collecting twelve needle biopsy samples of the prostate in a grid pattern. It was a bit uncomfortable, but no big deal. I thought that I’d get this done early in the day, then head straight back to work. The discomfort was more than I guessed it would be, so I took the rest of the day off. By normal quitting time, I was feeling back to normal. Funny how that works.
I was supposed to get results in about two weeks. When I called, they said it would be another week because the local doctor needed a second opinion from the experts at Johns Hopkins. I suppose this is when I started to become a little nervous about the possible results. A week later I went to the Urologist’s office. The doctor brought in the file and said rather matter-of-factly,”You have cancer.” Just pretty much straight out, no emotion, no nothing. He showed me the slides and the lab results. He informed me of my Gleason Score and something else. It was either too confusing or I didn’t listen. He said that I needed treatment. There were several kinds available. He loaned me a paperback book titled 100 Questions and Answers about Prostate Cancer (available at Amazon.com) and told me to come back in two weeks and tell me what kind of treatment I wanted to do. Maybe I’d find answers in the book. He told me not to put the treatment off for too long.
There you have it. I had the “C” word. Now it was my turn to deal with it. Millions of other people have to deal with it, but now things are different because it’s me and I’m supposed to come up with some sort of life and death decision. My wife and I had a Spring break vacation coming up in a week or so, and I would settle in, educate myself and work through what was starting to be a lot of anxiety and depression.
I had no symptoms of anything. I knew what symptoms were or might be. When I was 23 years old I had a bout of chronic prostatitis (spell check was having a problem with this word; it kept coming up as prostitutes). I had to get up several times during the night. I had the sensation of having to urinate very frequently. Yes, I had experience with symptoms but this time I had none of them. Aside from a few aches and pains that come with being a weekend warrior, I felt great.
Adding to my anxiety was the fact that my father had prostate cancer. He was about 75 years old when he received his diagnosis. He underwent a variety of treatments. All of his outcomes were adverse. More on this later.
My wife and I went to Florida and I read the book. It helped a lot in understanding the disease, the treatment options, therapies for recovery, and the odds of certain things happening that would cripple me forever. Vacations are supposed to be relaxing and a time for renewal of the spirit. This one was getting to be a bit depressing. It didn’t help me make up my mind very much.
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