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| Each man's Journey is listed under his BASIC treatment. When you click on one of the names to read a particular Journey, you may see one or more different treatments in bold lettering immediately above the Journey text. You will see (Recurrence) if they are due to a recurrence. Otherwise, they will be treatments used in conjunction with the basic treatment, i.e. Lupron with External Beam Radiation or External Beam Radiation with HDRT/Brachytherapy, etc. | |
Active Surveillance Alternative (Natural) Therapy Cryoablation - Freezing Hormone Therapy Radiation - Brachytherapy Radiation - External Beam Radiation - HDRT Surgery - Open Surgery - Robotic |
My name is Denny Shields. I'm an eight year prostate cancer survivor. My story started in the late 1990s. We were living in the Sacramento, California, area and had medical coverage with a large HMO that did not recommend Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) blood tests. I always asked about having a PSA test during my annual checkups and always got the same reason for denying it. Each time the doctor would give me a Digital Rectal Exam (DRE) and tell me my prostate was still small and that he didn't see any need for the test. The key here is that at no time did the doctor feel anything abnormal about my prostate. Being denied the PSA test meant I was being screened the old fashioned way DRE only. We know that up to the late 1980s, when doctors had only the DRE available for prostate cancer screening, the diagnosis came too late for approximately 75 percent of the men who were diagnosed with prostate cancer. By the time an abnormality could be felt on the prostate, the cancer had usually already spread and was incurable . We retired in 2000 and moved to Florence, Oregon in October. In January 2001, I met with a local doctor to get established and had a physical exam. He also gave me a DRE and, like my previous doctor, did not feel anything abnormal. He did suggest I have a PSA test finally! The score came back at 20! He had me take a second test and the score was 22! That afternoon I met with a urologist who also did a DRE, but with a different outcome. He said he felt two small lumps and scheduled me for a biopsy. I went home that day and told my wife that I had cancer. She held me and we both cried. The results of my biopsy confirmed that I had prostate cancer with a Gleason Score of 6, which fortunately tends to be slow growing and only mildly aggressive. That was my saving grace. Since we know that the PSA test can detect prostate cancer at a far earlier (and curable ) stage than the DRE, my prostate cancer was silently growing for possibly as much as 5-8 years. Had my cancer been an aggressive form with a Gleason Score of 8, 9 or 10, I most likely would have been diagnosed earlier, but probably because of symptoms of metastasized cancer . That would have precluded any possibility of a cure for me. One other point needs to be made: Only when I was examined by a urologist who specialized in prostate problems was any abnormality detected in my prostate. I now realize how important it is at times to see a doctor who is a specialist in a certain field of medicine, like urology. That experienced finger may well have saved my life. I soon realized that we needed a plan. I researched on the internet and then met with the urologist and oncologist. The treatment I decided on was five weeks of external beam radiation and then insertion of 112 radioactive seeds into my prostate. I wanted the five weeks of external beam radiation to kill any prostate cancer cells that may have escaped the prostate. This was because of my high PSA and no way of absolutely knowing if the cancer was still localized (contained within the prostate). Well, it's been eight years and the urologist told me that he doesn't believe that I'll die from prostate cancer. He also told me that I don't need to follow up with him every year, but I will continue to have PSA tests so any change, if it does happen, will be detected early. The key is early detection. I recently received a note from a 67-year-old friend. He had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Fortunately, he had been getting regular PSA tests, so when his PSA jumped from 2.5 to 4.0, the doctors went into action. The velocity of change in PSA is one of the markers urologists watch closely, but that can only be calculated when there are regular tests for comparison. My friend is a great example of how that can lead to a diagnosis of early prostate cancer. |
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