Kent
King and Beverly live in Oklahoma USA. He was 47 when he was diagnosed in February,
2009. His initial PSA was 4.5 ng/ml, his Gleason Score was 6 and he was staged
T1c. His choice of treatment was Robotic assisted radical prostatectomy. Here
is his story.
Diagnosed with prostate cancer in Feb 2009. Got the "call"
at my son's soccer practice. Will never forget it!
Discussed all options
with my urologist, who mentioned the robotic assisted surgery as an option, but
that he didn't do it and didn't know anybody who did. I got a second biopsy opinion
that confirmed everything from the first one. My wife and I talked to a lot of
doctors in OK, and couldn't find anybody who performed the robotic surgery, so
I pretty much resigned to getting the regular surgery by my urologist.
Then
my wife was talking to one of her college friends, who reminded her of another
old college friend who married a person who performs the robotic surgery at Vanderbilt
Hospital in NC. We made a few calls and was very excited to finally talk to a
doctor with many robotic surgeries under his belt. We both felt very comfortable
with this doctor, so I scheduled the operation.
Received the Da Vinci
robot assisted radical prostatectomy on April 7th 2009 at Vanderbilt Hospital.
Arrived in NC on Sunday, April 5th. Had all pre-op appointments on the 6th, surgery
on the 7th, discharged on the 8th, and was on a plane back to OKC on the 9th.
Talk about a full week!
The hospital doctors and staff were very professional
and caring, and I highly recommend Vanderbilt. Had the Foley catheter to deal
with for two weeks, then had that removed by my local urologist. I bet I drank
5 gallons of water a day for those two weeks, but it must have helped because
I didn't have any issues with the catheter and no infections. It felt GREAT to
have the catheter removed, but I was leaking a lot for the first week. (Make sure
to take the LARGE adult male pads with you when you get the catheter removed!)
That was a little stressful, but I just told myself to be patient that it would
get better, and it did. It is now 3 1/2 months since the surgery, and I am no
longer wearing pads... YEA!
I still have ED to deal with, but I am hopeful
that will improve also with time. My doctor says that can take 12 to 16 months,
so I'm patiently waiting. In the interim, I use a vacuum pump and penis ring for
intercourse. It works fine, but I'm hopeful for better in the future. I tried
Levitra, but it didn't seem to do anything for me. I had my 3 month PSA test,
and it came back 0.01, so I was very happy about that!
Thanks, and please
email me if you have any questions I may be able to answer.
Kent's e-mail
address is: kent.king@sbcglobal.net
