Mike
C and Dana live in Colorado, USA . He was 48 when he was diagnosed on December
1, 2009. His initial PSA was 6.4 ng/ml, his Gleason Score was 3+3 = 6 and he was
staged T1c. He is undecided as to his choice of treatment. Here is his story.
What
a mess - between the varying philosophies and treatment options and the self-serving
interests of the different treatment providers its really hard to get my arms
around the best treatment option for ME - not you, not them, but ME.
Step
one is to confirm my pathology which I'm waiting on now. I feel like the poster
child for over-diagnosis. I had at total of 3 biopsies with a total of 40 cores
before they found a cancer. Its less then 5% of one sample in the transition zone.
I have no symptoms and am being asked to make a life changing decision based on
a pin prick of cancer that if not found might have never done anything to me.
But now I know I have it and I need to plan a strategy with ramifications for
disease management and lifestyle for the next 30 yrs (hopefully).
Surgery,
CyberKnife®, seeds (Brachytherapy) , WW (Active Surveillance), saturation biopsy,
focused Cryotherapy...all have issues, benefits and risk/reward ratios.
I'm
OK with the fact that I'm mortal and accept my fate - the hard part is coming
to a decision on what to do and everyone has a different opinion.
I'm going
to spend the weekend creating a decision tree and see where it leads.
Thanks
for letting me vent and I will definitely be using this site for support and I
hope to be able to do the same when my time comes to be the sponsor instead of
the sponsee.
Mike's e-mail address is: cmike4homes@msn.com
