A day without cancer.

Hi Al985 

That sounds like a perfect day. Take heart, the “mothership” of cancer cells has gone and that is something to be celebrated. There’s no wrong decisions here, just the road to recovery with a few bumps along the way. It does seem to be quite common to have a mop up of stray cells with RT now- “to put the tin lid on it “ as my dad would say so that should do the job if needed. 
Best wishes and may you have many more carefree days like this.
Lorraine x  

Hello Al985, that sounds like a perfect day and the best thing you could have done ! I hope your appointment goes well today and I look forward to reading your next update. I really hope that, from now on, it’s onwards and upwards!

I am so cheered by this this. Thank you for posting it.

It am going to take this as my target.

All being well I finish my radiotherapy today. 37 fractions, so one of the longest courses. 

It will still be working for a while to come so, as Lorraine mentioned, in my case the mother ship will be done to a turn. Still have 2 years on HT but that has not affected my life too much so happy to go with that.

I also have a completely unrelated back problem to fix which the continued journeys to the hospital have made significantly worse. I am hoping that a chance for a bit of a rest now will kick that into touch.

When it does. I will follow your example.

Thank you for sharing this with us.

Hi Al985,I am so glad you managed to get a cancer free day, it does you good to get life back to ‘normal’.  I know you are wanting to understand the background to how you got where you are and hopefully your knowledge will help others, but the most important thing for you to do is to focus on your current situation.  As time goes on, more days will be ‘normal’ and cancer won’t dominate your consciousness.  What you did yesterday is a great lesson for us all - live life and don’t let cancer win, thanks for sharing it with us.  David

Hi Al985

Sounds like a great day. I have enjoyed several very pleasant days in Bakewell myself.  

Looks like your PC journey is fairly similar to mine.  Post TWOC you will feel much better, even if you do need to wear a pad! It becomes increasingly easy to get on with normal life and forget about PC. Got my histology results over the phone today which were good, cancer confined to prostate with clear margins but no mention of PNI. I wish I'd read your post beforehand so I could have asked about this specifically.  Fortunately I have my  follow up face to face appointment on Friday and this will be top of my list of questions.

Hope the TWOC went well.

All the best

Dave

Thanks for the support. Unfortunately reality has kicked in again. The specialist support nurses idea of support is to ask, what i wanted her to do. The fact she has daily contact with the surgeon gives her the opportunity broach the subject of perineural invasion with him, but no. I will see him in 6 weeks. Like it or lump it. Today was cystogram and removal of catheter. It all went well, no evidence of leakage from anastamosis? But even though I was aware of the possibility of incontinence I  struggling with the reality. I know it is only day one but the possibility of this being how it is for the immediate future is scary. I know it could be much worse but I refuse to contemplate how!!!!!!

Hi Al985 it’s such a scary time that’s for sure . You need to talk with some men here that have been through this and have come out the other side. Plenty of men here that will hopefully share their stories of recovery with you.. 6 weeks seems to be a long time and it would be nice to have some feedback earlier that’s for sure. But you do need to heal and those cells are probably going to stay the same in that time and can wait. If your consultant thought they needed to see you earlier about them I’m sure they would say, so this must mean that they are quite confident in where you are at this point and that there will be no change until they see you. Each day and week is a lifetime for us, but I think the consultants see this all the time and know how slow this process is, forgetting to take our fears into account.  Try not to worry, concentrate on getting better from the op. I hope some men want to share their first weeks of recovery and any tips.for you. 
L 

Hi Al,

I know how you feel. My surgery was three years ago but I sure remember that first day post cath removal. I was asking myself what the he** did I let them do to me. But it quickly got much better. I'm sure that will be the case for you as well.

I'm sure it is frustrating having to wait 6 weeks for your post prostatectomy consultation. It would help us help you if you could give more detail from your post surgery report. This should include gleason score, tumor volume and margin status.

Bottom line on PNI - when found presurgery it is a predictor of adverse pathology post surgery. But if found in post surgery examination of the prostate, its relevance is less clear. 

Much more relevant is the presence or absence of other adverse pathology in this report.

Hi

as the PNI was found in my original biopsies from what you have said it is not a good thing.

The nurse, for what ever reason has refused and continues to refuse to offer me any sort of comfort. I have met the surgeon on two occasions, the first time to cancel my op and and then to discuss the reasons for the cancellation and to look at another date. From the brief interactions I would think he has not been made aware of my concerns  as he did come across being compassionate whilst the nurse came across as the opposite. I was a nurse for a hell of a long time and I know if a patient contacted me in the distress I am experiencing I would do my best to offer reassurance.