My wife and daughter went to the beach recently and as my usual custom I stayed to work to pay for my many ill-advised investments. So…what to do with the pepster,(our most wonderful chocolate lab, have you by chance seen any of her pictures?). I ask one a member of my staff if she would mind going to my home mid-morning to let her out of our bedroom to go out in the backyard to run around, do her thing, and maybe throw tennis balls in the pool for her to fetch. So one my employee volunteers goes and dutifully does as I ask and lets the pompsie out and throws balls for about twenty minutes, puts her back into the bedroom, and comes back to work. ” How did the pepsi do?” I asked when she returned. ” I saw the bathroom where you filmed the legbag movie!” she said. I thought, ” That wallpaper is distinctive and dated.” I then debated telling my wife about any of it.
I had moderate obstructive voiding symptoms at the time of my diagnosis of prostate cancer. I was 52 and noticing a slower flow to my urinary stream and a little more frequency in feeling the urge to void. This was exacerbated by certain foods or drink, particularly beer.
This is key: obstructive voiding symptoms (diminished force and caliber of stream) is a sign of benign prostate enlargement. (See the diagram of the previous post). It can be a symptom of prostate cancer but only if the cancer is revealed very late. HELLO…THERE ARE NO SYMPTOMS RELATED TO PROSTATE CANCER IF IT IS DIAGNOSED EARLY. SYMPTOMS RELATED TO PROSTATE CANCER OCCUR IF THE DISEASE IS FOUND OUT LATE. IT IS USUALLY A SYMPTOM THAT GETS THE PATIENT TO THE DOCTOR BUT THAT IS WAYYYYYYYYYY TO LATE. SEE MY LETTER TO THE NYT REGARDING ABLIN’S FATHER. WE DON’T WANT THAT SCENARIO…. WE WANT EARLY AND WE WANT TO ADVOCATE AND SUPPORT EARLY DIAGNOSIS, AND AWARENESS. I SAW THIS SOMEWHERE ON THE NET…. A MAN DESERVES THE RIGHT TO KNOW IF HE HAS PROSTATE CANCER OR NOT AND HE IS GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO DECIDE WHAT TO DO AND HOW AGGRESSIVE OR PROACTIVE HE WOULD WANT TO BE. FOR SOMEONE TO DECIDE NOT TO DO A PSA OR A BIOPSY BECAUSE A ” THIRD PARTY THINKS IT’S THE RIGHT THING AND MOST COST EFFECTIVE THING TO DO” IS WELL…. WELL…. WHAT IS IT….ORWELLIAN?
Anyway back to me.
I had obstructive voiding symptoms at the time of my diagnosis. Removal of the prostate would fix that but would risk stress incontinence common to surgery. Radiation would worsen my obstructive symptoms (by virtue of the inflammation of the prostatic urethra).
So here is the deal today and the poignant point of the blog ……
You absolutely need to know your current voiding pattern and the affect each of the treatments has on that baseline.
For me one of the biggest factors favoring removal was ” how I voided.”
If you are reading this and don’t have a feel for where you are now, how each treatment affects how you void… you have more work to do.
Voiding issues and patient’s difficulty in understanding them was a very large impetus for writing ” The Decision.” Most of one chapter is devoted to the males abnormal voiding patterns and how each is influenced by each treatment.
Why? It was the urologist in me…. you know…. I’m a penis machinist, a pecker checker and of course a verified member of the ” stream team.”
Tomorrow… irritative voiding symptoms and why that is important…. tease…. radiation therapy… no matter which one… think irritative. Do your homework on this and more next post….
Oh yeah… the youtube…. I had surgery so immediately post op I had total incontinence which progressed over three months to stress incontinence which progressed to continence. Do you understand continence and it’s relationship to the treatments? No? It’s in the book my friend.
The whistling is supposed to the carefree sound of one of the seven dwarfs from Snow White….carefree, happy, not a care in the world….not!
Prostate Diaries 