Part 4 - My personal experiences with Prostate Cancer

My urologist went over the typical sequence of treatments if prostate cancer progresses:  surgery, radiation, hormone therapy, and chemo. For someone in the early stages like me, the usual options were surgery or radiation. I opted for surgery and I wanted it tomorrow.  Hold your horses big fellah. I wouldn’t have surgery until November – four months after that meeting with my urologist.

I did meet my surgeon in August. I had a choice of the surgeon who had developed the robotic program for prostate surgery at Hartford Hospital, or one of his associates. I had hear that the “head honcho” lacked bedside manner so I chose the associate. I have no regrets doing that, as I feel my surgeon is excellent. But I met the “head honcho” later on and I have a lot of respect for him. I don’t think I could have gone wrong either way.

It was during this initial meeting with my surgeon that I learned in detail what prostate surgery entailed. He told me about the benefits of robotic surgery (less invasive, faster recovery time) over traditional surgery.

More about robotic surgery:

http://www.roboticoncology.com/robotic-prostate-surgery/

Before any treatment, my doctors had to determine for certain that my cancer had not spread out of the prostate bed.  I was subjected to a series of scans in August and September.  

I had a CAT scan of my abdomen and pelvis, and a whole body bone scan. I also had an MRI of my thoracic spine, followed by a CAT scan of my thoracic spine.  While these scans in themselves were not too bad, I found the waiting for results to be maddening. Most of the scans were scheduled on a Friday, and I had to sit through the weekend on “pins and needles”. I also had one more biopsy in the abdomen. Finally all the tests were in and all indications were that my cancer was confined to my “prostate bed”.  A November surgery was a go.