For starters, I thought my appt. was for 1330 today and it was at 1000. Got there at 1130 and they were able to fit me right in with minimal wait. The latest PSA jumped up less than either myself or the doctor expected. This was a 6 week PSA after my 6 months result. It rose only from .10 to .11. He said it was in the range of a normal plus/minus for the test, so it may or may not have actually risen. Definitely not doubling quickly as first thought.
He did another DRE on me, second one in 6 weeks, so don't think they go away once you have surgery, lol. Didn't hurt, nothing there for him to feel anymore, but he wanted to be sure, and he said they still do biopsies after the prostate is removed, surprised me, he said they do a finger guided single core biopsy if they feel anything.
He scheduled me for another PSA with him in 3 months, but instead of waiting the 3 months and hoping it doesn't start shooting up during that time, he is sending me to a good radiation oncologist in Greenville, one well experienced with PC in particular. That first consultation is on my birthday, July 13th. This dr. may or may not schedule more advanced tests or want to do their own PSA, which my dr. said is fine with him.
We talked about residual healthy tissue producing trace ammounts of PSA, he said it is rare but has seen it in his 30 years of practice. He said he has also seen post surgery patients get psa as much as .40 and never go higher, and never show any evidence of true reaccurance, so like so many things with PC, never any set rules or consistencies.
I feel somewhat better, not so doom and gloom at the moment. I think going ahead and talking to the radiation people will be a good step instead of sitting around and worrying about the next PSA. My dr. is concerned that radiation could give me bad problems with urinating, since I have such a bad history of closure at the bladder neck and all the cath time I went through. As usual, it is what it is. I did tell him that my anixety the past six weeks was the worse I have been through since I started my PC journey, he did seem concerned and aware of what us mere patients go through.
So that is the latest from me. At least it was a much smaller rise than expected.
David in SC
Age 56, 56 at DX, PSA 7/7 5.8, 7/8 12.3,9/8 14.5
3rd Biopsy Sept 08: Positive 7 of 7 cores, 40-90%, Gleason 7, 4+3
Open RP surgery 11/14/8, Right nerves spared, 4 days hospital, staples out 11/24/8, 5th cath out on 1/19/9
Post-surgery Pathlogy Report:Gleason 3+4=7, pT2c, 42 grm, tumor 20%, Contained in capsular, clear margins, clear lymph nodes
First PSA Post Surgery 2/9 .05, 5/9 .10 doubled in 3 months, new test in six weeks, then possibly off for salvage radiation