YANA - YOU ARE NOT ALONE NOW

PROSTATE CANCER SUPPORT SITE

BRONZE

David Pattison and Maureen live in Belveze, France . He was 65 when he was diagnosed on October 30, 2008. His initial PSA was 5.73 ng/ml, his Gleason Score was 7 and from his description he would have been staged T2a or T2b. He is undecided as to his choice of treatment . Here is his story.

I have just returned from the urologist having been told I have cancer.I have a palpable left side cancer, the biopsy said I was only affected on the left side. I go for a scan on the 17th of November and then see the specialist the day after. At this time he is suggesting possibly I will be best to have the prostate removed.

My mind at this time is in a whirl. After all the waiting and stress I am struggling to cope and think this may help me as well as others.

The annoying thing is I have visited my GP and had my PSA done for the past five years. It jumped from 4 to 6.11 and he said it was my prostate enlarging. No physical exam. I finally said I needed to see a urologist and had the biopsy done with the result I have cancer in my left lobe.

I will continue when I am myself and have more news.

Later: I am updating now although I have not yet had any treatment. The reason is a time has gone by and I understand more about myself. My initial reaction was fear and panic. Let's get the letters written to the family etc. It seems as if one crosses a line and reality comes and with the help of places like this one can start to address the situation in a better manner. Having now read a bit I have even guided some others and got great satisfaction from doing so.

I am now at 18th of October and yesterday I went for my scan. Drink a litre of this please the nurse said handing me a two bottles of Barium drink. Two hours later and I saw the doctor and received my DVD of the process and his wonderful words "I can not see any Metastasis" great news.

Today saw the Urologist who tells me to wait until after Christmas to have surgery (The old fashioned kind) with any luck it might be a home run. Which I will I think go for having just read an article which suggests better recovery of faculties i.e. Urine and potency.

I am still open to other thoughts but have to get him to book my place on his list next week

More later.

 

UPDATED

January 2009

 

 

An update on my statues as time is going on since first diagnosis in October.

I was not happy with the way my Urologist wanted to do things, any questions I asked were pushed to one side and I decided to get a second opinion in Toulouse which is about sixty miles from home. The Doctor I saw examined me and said he thought I needed two more scans. Remember this is France and the added difficulty of the language does not help. Even if you have good French the terminology is different. Also he was a Radiologist and I am not to keen on the thought of that before surgery as I have read of difficulties with healing and radiation burning etc.

So I next visited my Local General Practitioner Doctor and he put my in touch with a Specialist at Argen a town close by my home. This Doctor was really nice and speaks English and goes to the States to keep up with new Practices . I was immediately happy with him and he does the laparoscopic procedure. He also said I needed more scans and these were quickly and efficiently arranged.

15th of December I had a radio active injection and was then put on a Scintigraphie (as called here [this seems to be what is commonly referred to as a bone scan]) With good results (this was looking for metastasis ) then 29th of December I had an MRI scan. In France you have the scan wait about fifteen minutes and the doctor in charge interviews you with the results. In my case he said it looks good and appears to be contained. He then writes a report while you wait and gives you the report, the film and a DVD of the whole thing. All in two hours.

So I now have an appointment on the 5th of January where hopefully I will get the date of my procedure which will be Laparoscopic.

All for now Happy New Year to you all and thank you so much for being there in a time of great need and stress for me and my family.

David's e-mail address is: david.mo@hotmail.co.uk