Today is a huge relief: My doctor called to tell me that my PET scan results were, in his words, "clean." Here's the report:
The first sentence means the scan found strong evidence of prostate cancer in my prostate. The second sentence means it didn't find it anywhere else. It hasn't metastasized. There's no cancer in my bones or my lymph nodes.
This is the best possible news. Well, second best: the best news would have been not to have prostate cancer in the first place. But as long as it's localized just to the prostate, it's extremely treatable and unlikely to have any permanent effects.
On Wednesday I have a consult with the oncologists to discuss treatment options. I'm a wee bit tired of cancer, so my preference at the moment is "all of the above." Surgically remove it, hit it with some radiation, and then pump some hormones into my body just to make sure it's gone. Maybe toss in some chemo for good measure. Most likely, though, it will only be one of the three.
Great news Kevin. Some tough challenges still ahead, but good odds. Here's to Biden's reelection, and to you writing about Donald Trump becoming the greatest nothingburger of all time!
So happy to hear this news!
They say that far more men die with prostate cancer than die from it. May you be in that fortunate majority.
Me too. My prostate was under active surveillance since my GP felt a bump during an annual physical in 2016 and referred me to a urologist. My PSA was fairly stable until last year, and after two positive biopsies the third came up negative. Then my PSA started to climb, and when it reached 13.8 a fourth biopsy and an MRI showed that the cancer had woken up. My urologist reminded me that surgery is how he makes his living, but nevertheless given my age (85) he recommended radiation. I'll have a PET CT scan on Thursday, and meet with the radiation oncologist next week. The standard radiation therapy goes on for seven to nine weeks, but there's a new protocol, SBRT, which gets it done in five sessions. Given my travel plans, that's the one I'll lobby for.
Again, best wishes for a complete recovery.