MRI results T3a!

Hello Alpine Wanderer & Welcome to The Club (the one you didn't want to join!!).

You sound some what worried about the diagnosis you have received - I agree what you have said about it being a T3a and it's broken out of the outer layer of the prostate but not gone walkabout yet! I also understand your anxiety of the waiting for biopsy and results.

At this point you would be able to go down either the surgery to have it removed or the HT/RT route - I would think they would be both open to you. A little bit of research may well be a god idea to decide which route you wish to take. If it's the HT/RT route I am sure they can start you off on this right after the biopsy -  they did with me, this would put a stop to any further spread almost right away.

Prostate Cancer is slow growing and 98% of confirmed cases end up losing their life to something else!! I am a T3a - if you click on the icon of the beach you can follow my personal journey - I am still on it.

If you wish to know anything else, just ask.

I hope this helps - don't panic - you will be Ok.

Kind regards

Brian.

Hi AW and welcome.

Your stats are actually similar to mine after I was on AS for 4 years before starting  Radiotherapy.

My size was 13mm , PSA 13, hadn't broken thru but near edge.

It's good news that yours not spread into lymph, vesicles or bones, still potentially curable.

As it has broken through u may want to consider Radiotherapy, have they mentioned that.

I know the waiting is grim but September not far away now.

Do check on the two main treatment options, side effects etc.

Any questions please ask, I'm sure others will post as well

Best wishes

Steve 

Not sure if this works but thanks for quick and reassuring reply Brian !

Hi Steve - wow! Didn’t realise I’d get a reply straight away! I feel I’m not alone in this community.  Having said that, I have a Wonderful wife (40 years married this year).  She is so supportive !  I’m 66 BTW

Hello AW, you will soon realise that Brian and I have a habit of stealing each others thunder! He has said exactly what I would have said. My husband is a T3 a. Like you, we were terribly anxious. Just to warn you, we were sent for a bone scan after the biopsy results were known. This was a shock and we were besides ourselves with worry but no secondaries found. He chose the RT and HT route and completed the Rt in March this year. So far so good and we are now getting on with our lives - hoping for the best and fearing the worst! It is all a massive shock at first and getting through the diagnostics is hell in terms of anxiety. But, you do come out the other side!  I wish you all the best for the next few weeks. Let us know how you get on.

I definitely will update you all - thank you so much for replying.  My wife is reading these too!!

Hi Alpine Wanderer - I am only a young 67 and10/12th and yes I win on the marriage stakes 44 years and to be honest if it wasn't for the wives and partners going through this cancer we men would be lost! I have had great support from Mrs Millibob but also had a positive attitude from the start - yes the diagnosis was a shock - and with some of the things I have been through you do lose your dignity but I will get the better of this cancer and I am doing so!!

I wish you well (and your wife) on your journey - you are most welcome to be in our club.(no one wants to be in it!!) We are all here for you.

Best wishes

Brian.

Thanks Brian for your support. As you may have noticed, my moniker points towards my job: my wife and I are both international mountain guides (taking people on hiking tours) so this development in my health is going to hit our lifestyle hard. We’ve been doing it for 16 years, since I retired from real work, so I guess we’ve had a good run at it.  I just hope side effects will allow us to return to it eventually.

 Alpine Wanderer  (and Millibob )

Another T3A Gleason 9 here, albeit a bit longer in the tooth. If we're having a competition I am 75 50/52 and 54 years married!

I was diagnosed in 2018 with a PSA of 11 which had risen to 15 by the time treatment started. I had three years of hormone treatment with 20 sessions of radiotherapy in early 2019. It's over two years since my last Prostap injection and my PSA has been stable at 0.2 for the last 18 months so currently in remission.

I suggest you go to the Prostate Cancer UK website and download the PC Toolkit. It has loads of information and the best place to start is the booklet titled "How Prostate Cancer Is Diagnosed". You can find it with the link below:

https://shop.prostatecanceruk.org//our-publications/all-publications/tool-kit

Good luck with your treatment, keep in touch with your progress and make sure you ask any questions you may have as someone here will have experience and be able to give you an answer.

Hi AW

The waiting in this PC game is almost as bad as being told you have it. Waiting for the next scan, waiting for the biopsy, waiting for the MDT to come up with treatment options. It seems forever waiting!

As others have said, on the face of it, you could be in a position where you are offered surgery or HT/RT. This is a difficult one to make. I wasn't fortunate to be given any choice - it was HT/RT for me. But I've no idea which way I would have gone. My initial thoughts were get this out of me NOW but, in hindsight, I'm not sure.

As others have said, use the 'waiting' time to good effect, and research the options, so you are fully informed when the treatment plan is formalised.

Good luck with your decision

Regards

Stuart