My Introduction, my diagnosis and treatment so far

Hi Brian,

Fingers crosses for a low reading Wednesday! Yes, your story has had a number of twists and turns. It’s still early days for me.

When I had the news first broken to me at the hospital I wanted them to slap me straight on the hormones there and then, like you, but they wanted to get all the scans and biopsy first, so it was agonising waiting and a grim lead up to Christmas. I was actually having an ultrasound on a lump supposedly in my chest cavity on Christmas Eve (oh no, it’s spread to my lungs!), but it turned out to be a harmless lipoma in my outer skin (I have a few of these) giving a false positive on the PET!!

At one stage I was even considering paying for the PET myself and travelling to Windsor to get it done super fast to save me two weeks torturous wait and have a pre Christmas result, but in the end the hospital got its hands on the radioactive dye they needed and it was all in a week before.

Thanks for your help with all the info!

Good Afternoon Aboniskin 

I was lucky (if you think being in hospital Christmas and New Year lucky) as they had me there so scans, bone MRI, CT and Ultrasound all done together with the biopsy (the old TRUS biopsy - ouch!).

The Urology Consultant was amazing.  Now I am under The Christie in Manchester, possibly the 2nd best Cancer Hospital in the UK.

I will be posting my results next week along with any interventions required.

Best wishes - Brian.

Talking of the biopsy, I was not looking forward to it, but the doctor, a professor, came in the waiting room beforehand and gave me a friendly chat, then we went in and it began. All dignity out of the window! A nurse distracted me with conversation and the cores were taken. A bit like a nail gun, I thought, as it clicked, but it didn't hurt so the antithetic needles did the job.

Anyway, the doctor said nothing and went about his business down there, so at the end, feeling relieved it was over, I said, "The last time I was in this position, it was 1973 and my mum was pouring talcum powder on my bum!" 

Not a murmur from him!

Best wishes!

Hi Aboniskin , I know it sounds daft but I just don’t know how many lymphs were involved.  It was 8 years ago and I was classed as N1 not curable.  In those 8 years techniques have changed and I think now I would have been on a curable pathway.  I could probably request my original notes but to be honest it won’t change anything so I haven’t bothered.  David

Hi David, I understand, that’s fair enough. It makes sense that techniques have changed because my doctor said there was no data on success with my status because they don’t usually take this path. Because of my age and my health (which is pretty good otherwise), they are ‘throwing everything at it’ with the chemotherapy to hopefully stop it before it starts, on the assumption that there is micro spread (given the high PSA) despite nothing other than one small lymph lighting on the PET. Thus they are treating it a ‘curable’ at this point. So in some respects I am a bit of an experiment.