A year since diagnosis - now some great news!

Hello Tom (Beard) 

What an amazing post and brilliant news for both you and your wife. Thank you for taking the time to come back to us and deliver the great news.

I wish you both well moving forward.

Best wishes - Brian.

Thank you for super update, sending all the best

It’s been a rough ride for both of you buy you both are coming through it! Well done! I hope your scan results are good and that you both can sail into calmer waters and enjoy some better health. Well done! I am so pleased for you both

Great news.

Good responses on all sides.

Keep it up, and keep smiling.

Hi Tom (Beard ) what a year, but you are both doing amazingly well.  This gives hope to those following, so many thanks for your positive post.

Hi all,

Just a little update, I always sought out "good news" posts when I first joined the site, so I thought I would update on my experience. I will update my profile too.

I had my follow-up with oncology this week and the results were (in the oncologists words) excellent. My PSA is still undetectable, the lung nodules have completely gone, the bone metastasis has drastically reduced, and there are no new metastases. My bloods are all good and the echocardiogram showed my heart is normal too.

So from a cancer point of view, the treatment (triplet therapy) has worked incredibly well, and I feel very lucky. My wife had good news too - following radiotherapy there is now no sign of cancer at all. She has neuropathy to her hands and feet and fatigue, but is coping admirably well.

I am now moving onto 3-monthly monitoring with the oncology team.

I am not saying I have “beaten” it, and I know the ongoing battle is to keep the PSA low and stay on top of things, but I did want to share this because when I was first diagnosed I found it really helpful to hear from people who were responding well to treatment.

The treatment and side effects are not easy, and I am still struggling with lymphoedema and mobility problems following surgery (I may write a separate post on my experience of the impact lymph node removal can have), so it certainly has not all been straightforward. But the main thing I wanted to say is that these treatments really can work, and sometimes they can work amazingly well.

We also had fantastic support from Macmillan with our finances, and I would really encourage anyone to speak to them about what support may be available. It helped us enormously and took a lot of pressure off us at a very difficult time.

I also want to say a heartfelt thank you to our respective oncologists and the team at QA Hospital (Portsmouth) for their care, expertise and support throughout all of this. We feel very fortunate to have been looked after so well.

A year ago we could not have imagined being in this position, so we hope this gives someone else a bit of encouragement.

Wishing everyone all the best and sending strength to those still in the thick of it - there absolutely is hope.

Tom

It's great to hear your good news Tom.

I'm also on triplet therapy, finished chemo October 2024 and my PSA remained undetectable at my last 3-month review in March.

Long may it continue.

Derek.

Hello Tom (Beard) 

What a cracking post and great news for you and your wife.

Whilst you may not be "out of the woods" there's god news and things are so much better than last May.

I love posts like yours - it makes volunteering worthwhile and as you say by posting your results and situation it will give encouragement to others - brilliant.

Please do keep us posted and my best wishes to you both for a continued recovery.

Kind regards - Brian.

Thanks Brian and Derek, that’s very kind of you both.

This site was a huge help to me, especially in the (scary) early days, so if sharing my experience gives someone else a bit of hope then I’m very glad to do it.

You and the other volunteers do a brilliant job, and it really is appreciated.

Very best wishes,
Tom

Great news