YANA - YOU ARE NOT ALONE NOW

PROSTATE CANCER SUPPORT SITE

BRONZE

Bob Zupancic and Connie live in North Carolina, USA. He was 52 when he was diagnosed on April 19, 2007. His initial PSA was 3.1 ng/ml, his initial Gleason Score was 6 and he was staged T1c. He is undecided as to what treatment he should have. Here is his story:

I was recently diagnosed (52 years old) with PC with a PSA of 3.1, Gleason score of 6 and 2 out 12 samples from a biopsy were positive. The biopsy was performed due to an increase in my PSA level over a two year period. I am undecided at this point as to what treatment to pursue and am investigating options.

 

UPDATED

July 2007

 

 

Well, after months of investigating my options and talking to surgeons, oncologists, etc. I opted for a robotic prostatectomy done by Dr. Patel of the Ohio State medical center. He has done over a 1,000 of these.

I had the surgery on July 2nd and was released from the Hospital the next day. I am now at home revovering nicely with only some slight pain in the stomach area and primarily around the sutures. I am yet to get the pathology report back. I have to say the whole procedure was fairly easy-of course I slept through the good parts but it was easier than I had exected. As others have commented on the forum, the biggest pain to me is the catheter, but I am learning to live with it and have scheduled to have it out within a week of surgery. More to come later...

 

UPDATED

August 2008

 

 

My surgery was one year ago in July. I have had four PSA tests after the surgery and the results were all less than .01. My plan calls for PSA checks every 6 months for a few more years then yearly-like taking the car in for a routine maintenance check- no big deal

My incontinence continued to improve after the surgery with minor set backs but today I feel I am 99.8% fully recovered relative to that. In my mind, Kegels are a must. I found that my improvement became stagnant when I stopped doing my Kegel exercises. As I completed more and more Kegels on a routine basis, my incontinence also decreased.

ED is another story. This takes some patience. It took approx. 3 months to be able to really have any real function which became somewhat frustrating but I kept thinking of the potential alternative without surgery-puts things in much better perspective. I saw continual improvement month by month. After starting on Cialis, I saw further improvement. Looking back over the past year and a half I have almost forgotten about the surgery and mending.

All-in-all things have gone pretty much how I expected and I often think about my decision and if it was the right one. I know it was! I got rid of the cancer and that was my number one goal.

 

UPDATED

December 2009

 

 

It has now been 2 ½ years and still have an undetectable PSA.

Everything else is great!

Bob's e-mail address is: bzupancic@aol.com