Here is a rough timeline of the events that I experienced:
I received my prostate cancer diagnosis on July 21st,
2011. I had a prostatectomy in November of 2011. I received radiation in
February and March of 2012. My surgeon then monitored my PSA’s every few months,
which held steady at 0.1 until April of 2014, at which point they started
slowly rising. I hit 0.2 (considered an indication of biochemical recurrence)
in September of 2014. My surgeon believed that any cancer in my body would be
undetectable at a PSA level of 0.2, so we continued to monitor my PSA’s. I then
had successive readings of 0.3, 0.6, and 0.7.
My doctor ordered a CAT scan and bone scan when my PSA read 1.1 in July
of 2016, but these were negative.
I thought that my gradual ascent would continue for quite
some time – maybe 5 years or more. Let’s keep kicking than can down the road. I
was shocked when my next reading jumped to 11.2. I figured it was a mistake,
based on the last 5 years of readings. The PSA test was repeated, and it was
even higher. I had crossed the threshold
– I now had advanced prostate cancer. I will share in more detail a little later how I
got here.
I make jokes about my prostate cancer from time to time, but
that’s just my way of handling it. Cancer is no joke. I have had my dark
moments but I refuse to give into it. My cancer is always whispering in my ear
– not every day, but quite often. At least I’m alive to hear those whispers.
Prostate cancer is considered one of the ‘better cancers” –
it tends to grow slowly. When caught early, many men appear to be cured – I
personally know a few men who have had no problems 15 years after treatment –
there may be others who have gone longer. Autopsies of elderly men have shown
that a large number had prostate cancer, even though they didn’t show symptoms
and they died of something else. In a majority of cases, it grows slowly.
Some prostate cancers are more aggressive. If these prostate
cancers are not treated and they metastasize, they can morph into very serious cancers.
This is not a pleasant way to die. There are some men who choose to “watch and
wait”, their cancers do not spread, and they live out their normal lifespan. The problem is that it’s sometimes difficult
at the onset to determine what type of prostate cancer a man has.
Here are a couple of articles that go into more detail on
this subject:
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