I have a Wood Badge in Scouting…a so-call masters degree in scouting that you get if you spend four weekends or so dressed up like a Boy Scout and learning everything known to man about fires, knots, cooking and getting along in the outdoors. One of the tests we were given in regards to starting a fire had to do with time. You see if I ask a scout to start a fire, that is one thing. If I give him only two matches and say it needs to be started in four minutes…well that’s another. Putting the stress of a time limit to any task makes the task more stressful and difficult.
If a man is in a shaky marriage and you throw in the stress of a cancer that also strikes at the manhood of the male, that being continence and impotence, well then that just might break a chain with a weakened link….might it not? I have friends and patients whose marriage fell apart in large part due to the stresses of the disease, the treatment and the wife being unable to “handle it.”
In this song performed by yours truly the poor ole prostate cancer male with all his manhood problems is pleading for his wife, who he thought loved him through and through, to come back. This is done in the Louis Prima style.
Medical insight, personal stories and humor from a urologist who has been where you are now.
Prostate Diaries 
Yep, this is what happened to me.
My little wifey, who promised to love in sickness and in health didn’t take her vows seriously.
She left me actually a few years before I had my operation.
What a kick in the ass.
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I am a 59 year old physician, diagnosed 2 years ago with gleason 6 – 3 out of 12 cores positive. I had a second biopsy 1 year later – still gleason 6, 4 out of 20 cores. All cores are under 50%.
So I don’t really fit current active surveillance criteria, but so far have elected to watch. PSA is around 4, and has not risen significantly.
I live near Boston, and have seen 2 Harvard Medical School doctors, both full Professors, both prostate oncologists. One recommended watching, with “no evidence, based on the PIVOT Trial, that I need treatment”. The second oncologist re-read the slides, still graded G-6, but with one slide showing PNI, and recommended prostatectomy.
It is an incredibly frustrating journey to be on, receiving contradictory advice from 2 doctors, both of whom I believe have my interest at heart. I am able to read most studies myself, and understand the medical and statistical data, but am amazed by the discordance of advice.
In the end, I’ll probably opt for surgery, figuring that although my risk of disease is low, I have (hopefully) many years of risk ahead if I choose to keep watching. I am, however, already sad about what will become the “new normal” in terms of continence and sexual function, as I’ve highly valued my sexual relationship with my wife.
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Dr. Peter
May I offer the suggestion that you at least investigate the possibility of proton treatment? Bob Marckini, who runs the website protonbob.com can give you the names and contact info of physicians who have been treated with protons for PCa. Personally, I met several when I was so treated two years ago. Good luck.
Jim
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