YANA - YOU ARE NOT ALONE NOW

PROSTATE CANCER SUPPORT SITE

BRONZE

Andy Cooper lives in Massachusetts, USA. He was 58 when he was diagnosed in March, 2008. His initial PSA was 3.8 ng/ml, his Gleason Score was 3+4=7 and he was staged T1C. His choice of treatment was Robotic-assisted Laparoscopic Surgery. Here is his story.

My annual physical in 2007 indicated an increase in my PSA from 2.4 to 3.8 - still in the normal range. I was re-tested and the score remained the same. My primary care physician suggested I see a urologist - particularly because my father had prostate cancer in his 70s and had a recurrence at age 91 and died from PC at age 91 (I'll sign up for that now - he was healthy enough to golf multiple times a week until his 91st birthday.

The urologist performed the usual DRE and everything felt normal, but he scheduled a biopsy and that indicated that 6 out of 18 tests were positive - all on the left side. I still remember what my urologist said, "The right side looks good!". At which point I knew I had prostate cancer . The CT Scan and Bone Scan indicated that the cancer did not appear to have spread from the prostate gland.

The next phase was the most difficult - deciding on the treatment and doing enough research to determine the best approach. There just did not seem to be enough information on which treatment and more importantly which doctor to choose. Thankfully, my wife suggested calling a high school friend who is now a plastic surgeon in New Haven, Connecticut to see what he knew. This turned out to be the absolutely best thing I did. My friend contacted a urologist at Yale who recommended Robotic-assisted Laparoscopic removal of my prostate. He also said that I should not consider any surgeon who had performed less than 200 of this type of prostatectomy. He gave me 4 names of what he considered the top surgeons on the east coast -

John Munoz in Manchester, NH
Jim Hu in Boston
Ash Tewari in NY
Vip Patel in Orlando, FL

I decided to meet with Drs. Munoz & Hu since they were within 1 hour. I liked them both a lot and was more comfortable with Dr. Munoz so I went with him.

I did lots of research on PC and robotic-assisted laparoscopy and got comfortable with the procedure. I'm 6 feet tall and weighed 202. I decided to lose 10 pounds prior to surgery, but only lost 6 (just to be more healthy). I stopped eating meat and stopped drinking alcohol (neither of which I did in excess anyway).

My particulars were: PSA in 2006 was 2.4, PSA in 2007 was 3.8; at the time of PC diagnosis my Gleason was 3+4 & stage was T1C.

Dr. Munoz was fabulous. He did the surgery on the afternoon of May 14th and I went home on the morning of the 15th. The week with the catheter was not the end of the world - I thought it would be worse - but I don't recommend it for a fun time. One thing that really helped was a suggestion from my daughters - buy tear away warm-up pants. These are warm up pants that snap all the way down the legs. This allowed me to use the larger catheter bag and more importantly not switch when I went out of the house. I would just hook the bag from the inside of the warm-ups over one of the snaps. Not switching bags was a big plus that week.

Dr. Munoz was able to spare the nerves on the right side, but not the left (that was the plan all along - and recommended by each surgeon I met with). My road to continence is going pretty well. I'm still wearing 1 pad a day, but I started playing golf after 4 weeks and at the end of week 5 I was back walking 18 holes.

One mistake I did make was feeling too good too quickly. I took our dog for a 15 minute walk around the block while I still had the catheter. This was a big mistake. I was sore for the next 2-3 days. And now (6 weeks after surgery) I am having limited urine flow - perhaps due to scar tissue from that dog walk. I now have to push a small blue plastic device down my penis 2twice each day for a month to open up the stream. It is working, but I would definitely try to avoid adding this process to your day.

I regularly did the Kegel exercises and I have to believe that they have helped me on my road back to continence.

The five incisions in my stomach where Dr. Munoz cut for the laparoscopy are all healing nicely. The center one, which is the largest incision (used to remove the prostate) is still a bit tender, but getting better. I'm doing a set of crunches each morning and this is definitely helping.

I had my follow-up with Dr. Munoz yesterday and my PSA is 0.02. So far so good. PSA check-ins are scheduled every 3 months for the 1st year and every 6 months for the second year.

I consider myself really lucky and am a poster child for annual physicals. A PSA of 3.8 would not have warranted the follow-ups with a urologist without the benchmark of 2.4 in prior years.

I read some information that a cousin of a brother-in-law sent me from Dr. Meyer in Charlottesville, Virginia (once you tell people that you have prostate cancer you will get a wealth of information and advice - and most of it will be very helpful) and have made some changes to my diet. I have stopped eating meat particularly pork and have limited my consumption of alcohol. I had a red wine after golf last week, but that felt too weird so I'm going back to having a single beer after golf. I'm eating less sugar and trying to lose some more weight. I'm down another 4 pounds with a goal to get back under 190.

If anyone needs a great surgeon in the New England area I would highly recommend Dr. Munoz.

I hope that this write-up helps someone who is recently diagnosed with PC. All of the doctors told me to take my time making my decision. My feeling was that time was not on my side. I did my research, made my decision and acted quickly on it once I got comfortable with it.

 

UPDATED

January 2010

 

 

My status is still very good. My PSA was tested every 3 months for the first year and every 6 months this year (the second year). My current PSA is .04 (actually I think the reading at that level is <.04). My health is good (knock on wood) and bladder control back to normal.

Andy's e-mail address is: arcoop17@gmail.com but he says he doesn't check it very often!!