Golfmmad
Tour Winner
I thought this was an apt time to share my progress.
For the benefit of those that were not on the forum at the time, in August of 2010 I was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer, (will now refer as PCa) and had major surgery to remove my prostate, (Radical Prostatectomy) on the 15th December 2010.
Recovery from surgery went very well and I was able to go back to work at the end of January 2011, and of course, started playing golf again. It took a good year to fully recover and I didn't realise at the time that it is one of the most complicated surgeries for men to undergo.
After having surgery blood tests are the norm to check PSA levels, and hope for an undetectable reading. Even though the skill of the surgeon uses a technique called, "nerve sparing surgery", sometimes some of the minute cancer cells can be left behind. This can mean that the PSA levels can start to rise again. If this happens the next step is to have Radiotherapy to clear up any cells left behind.
This happened to me and in December 2011 I started a course of 37 daily sessions of Radiotherapy - every day for 6 weeks, having breaks at weekends. This isn't as bad as it might seem and each treatment only took about 5-10 minuites overall. Side effects were minimal which were tiredness and bowel problems,but these subside after approx 3 months. And this is where some people get confused thinking that Chemotherapy will be part of the treatment and you will lose hair. But it would only be an option for very advanced PCa - thankfully that isn't the case for me.
I've learnt so much about PCa over the last 2years and even joining a Forum for PCa sufferers. This may sound a bit sad, but I wanted to be as informed as I could be in order to, first of all, understand more about PCa and how it affects me and also with that knowledge, understand more when in consultations.
Most of the Forum members are in America and Canada and boy do they know about their health!
So, since my Radiotherapy finished I've had 2 Blood tests and pleased to report that they have both reduced and the last reading was 0.10 which is almost "Undetectable"! A bit like getting down to scratch in golf. I know which is more likely to happen!! :thup:
Hope I haven't gone on for too long and thanks for reading.
Oh, and I can't finish without reminding anybody, if you think you need to, get your PSA checked. :thup:
Chris
For the benefit of those that were not on the forum at the time, in August of 2010 I was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer, (will now refer as PCa) and had major surgery to remove my prostate, (Radical Prostatectomy) on the 15th December 2010.
Recovery from surgery went very well and I was able to go back to work at the end of January 2011, and of course, started playing golf again. It took a good year to fully recover and I didn't realise at the time that it is one of the most complicated surgeries for men to undergo.
After having surgery blood tests are the norm to check PSA levels, and hope for an undetectable reading. Even though the skill of the surgeon uses a technique called, "nerve sparing surgery", sometimes some of the minute cancer cells can be left behind. This can mean that the PSA levels can start to rise again. If this happens the next step is to have Radiotherapy to clear up any cells left behind.
This happened to me and in December 2011 I started a course of 37 daily sessions of Radiotherapy - every day for 6 weeks, having breaks at weekends. This isn't as bad as it might seem and each treatment only took about 5-10 minuites overall. Side effects were minimal which were tiredness and bowel problems,but these subside after approx 3 months. And this is where some people get confused thinking that Chemotherapy will be part of the treatment and you will lose hair. But it would only be an option for very advanced PCa - thankfully that isn't the case for me.
I've learnt so much about PCa over the last 2years and even joining a Forum for PCa sufferers. This may sound a bit sad, but I wanted to be as informed as I could be in order to, first of all, understand more about PCa and how it affects me and also with that knowledge, understand more when in consultations.
Most of the Forum members are in America and Canada and boy do they know about their health!
So, since my Radiotherapy finished I've had 2 Blood tests and pleased to report that they have both reduced and the last reading was 0.10 which is almost "Undetectable"! A bit like getting down to scratch in golf. I know which is more likely to happen!! :thup:
Hope I haven't gone on for too long and thanks for reading.
Oh, and I can't finish without reminding anybody, if you think you need to, get your PSA checked. :thup:
Chris
:thup: 
