Gary
Amato and Christine live in Ohio, USA. He was 42 when he was diagnosed on June
17, 1999. His initial PSA was 9.0 ng/ml, his Gleason Score was 6 and he was staged
T2bNO. His choice of treatment was radical prostatectomy. Here is his story.
Hello,
At the age of 42 (9 years ago), went to the doc for a complete physical
to get a handle on cholesterol since my Dad (now 81)suffered his first heart attack
at age of 52. during that visit, family doctor did a DRE (Digital Rectal Examination),
said he felt something and sent me to urologist.
I had no symptoms and
was in pretty good shape. more tests, and then wham, you have prostate cancer,
of course I thought it was a death sentence. had surgery about eight weeks later
and made a speedy recovery, actually doing stomach crunches after about 14 weeks.
some early mild incontinence which normalized after about a year. sexual function
was intermittent for the first almost 2 years, then with a hit of Viagra (now
Levitra, sex life is back to normal, although a bit less frequent. PSA has always
been less than 0.10.
Last PSA (May 30, '08) came back 0.20. Doctor says
its probably lab margin of error, but he does want me to do another PSA in 6 months
instead of the usual 1 year. I hope he's right, but I guess you can't worry too
much about what may happen. cause any of us MAY get run over by a bus tomorrow,
but we don't worry about that. right now I'm healthy, enjoying life. All we can
do is hope.
Gary's e-mail address is: plowboss@aol.com
