- Joined
- Apr 28, 2015
- Messages
- 85,575
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- Location
- Third Coast
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Liberal
I have a strong immediate family history of prostate cancer:
My father was diagnosed at 57, and I lost him at 62.
My brother recently was diagnosed (very early in progression) at 52, and appears to have successfully battled it by removing his prostate - it's been almost two years free, for him. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but his prognosis is good.
So it was with great alarm that I found my PSA level had shot from '2' to '4', along with a few minor related consequences that I attributed to getting a little older now further alarming me. For those that don't know, PSA levels are one of the markers that indicate the likelihood of prostate cancer. A '4' is the crossover warning point for a man without any risk factors, and would draw enough attention to perform a biopsy. For a high-risk individual as myself, '2.5' is the crossover point.
I was told my PSA number & family history put me statistically at 20-25% chance of being malignant, though my urologist believed my risk was a bit higher due to the multiple family instances and the extreme closeness. Well, 25% is decent enough odds, but still this is serious stuff.
A biopsy was recently performed.
My urologist's facility has a policy of only discussing the results at a pre-scheduled appointment - this isn't the kind of stuff they do by phone or mail, for obvious reasons.
My results appointment was set for the 2nd week in January.
The day before Christmas Eve I was seeing my GP (different location, same provider) for a separate matter. She is the person that got this whole show going with the urology department, when my routine bloodwork showed a high PSA number. And she knew how stressed I was over this! And unbeknownst to me, the computer she was on had the biopsy results available from the urology department. She decided to break protocol, and asked if I'd like to see them. I panicked and initially declined (preferring to hear it from the urologist with my wife present, as scheduled), but then agreed when she became more insistent.
By now you probably guessed all the results were negative! Every one of the 12 pokes!
And I think we can also guess my GP peeked at the results before asking me if I'd like to know them.
But I & my family got a very good present this Christmas.
And it made Midnight Mass a more poignant experience!
My father was diagnosed at 57, and I lost him at 62.
My brother recently was diagnosed (very early in progression) at 52, and appears to have successfully battled it by removing his prostate - it's been almost two years free, for him. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but his prognosis is good.
So it was with great alarm that I found my PSA level had shot from '2' to '4', along with a few minor related consequences that I attributed to getting a little older now further alarming me. For those that don't know, PSA levels are one of the markers that indicate the likelihood of prostate cancer. A '4' is the crossover warning point for a man without any risk factors, and would draw enough attention to perform a biopsy. For a high-risk individual as myself, '2.5' is the crossover point.
I was told my PSA number & family history put me statistically at 20-25% chance of being malignant, though my urologist believed my risk was a bit higher due to the multiple family instances and the extreme closeness. Well, 25% is decent enough odds, but still this is serious stuff.
A biopsy was recently performed.
My urologist's facility has a policy of only discussing the results at a pre-scheduled appointment - this isn't the kind of stuff they do by phone or mail, for obvious reasons.
My results appointment was set for the 2nd week in January.
The day before Christmas Eve I was seeing my GP (different location, same provider) for a separate matter. She is the person that got this whole show going with the urology department, when my routine bloodwork showed a high PSA number. And she knew how stressed I was over this! And unbeknownst to me, the computer she was on had the biopsy results available from the urology department. She decided to break protocol, and asked if I'd like to see them. I panicked and initially declined (preferring to hear it from the urologist with my wife present, as scheduled), but then agreed when she became more insistent.
By now you probably guessed all the results were negative! Every one of the 12 pokes!
And I think we can also guess my GP peeked at the results before asking me if I'd like to know them.
But I & my family got a very good present this Christmas.
And it made Midnight Mass a more poignant experience!
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