HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

Tomorrow I get my biopsy result

Support Forums
>
Prostate Cancer
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 2/16/2009 5:45 PM (GMT -5)
Help,
I'm scheduled to get the catheter removed and get my biopsy report. I'm trying to right down all the questions I should be asking my doctor. Can you suggest what I should be asking? Thanks
Posted 2/16/2009 5:56 PM (GMT -5)
Hi brother,

It is hard to know what to ask until you have the results. You will have several post op followups, so if it was me I would listen, ask for copies of everything and then pepper him with what is not clear, if anything on the next post op visit. Good luck.

Scott
Posted 2/16/2009 6:12 PM (GMT -5)
Hi Old,
Congratulations on getting through the surgery and getting the catheter removed. I just had my cath out last Thursday and I will never forget the happiness I felt upon being "un-tethered".
The report you will be getting from the doc is actually the pathology report, not the biopsy, wherein they actually inspect the removed prostate organ itself under a microscope. Some of the most important things they will find out and tell you include:
Final Gleason grade and score
Percent of prostate involved with the tumor
Margin, negative or positive
Extraprostatic extension
Seminal Vesicle invasion
Perineural invasion
Lymph nodes
Pathologic staging
Some of the most important items that you want to know about are the surgical margins and the extraprostatic extensions. You want both of these to be negative which means that the disease is still organ confined and hopefully has not gone elsewhere. You also want no seminal vesicle invasion. All this information has importance and relevance but to me those were the most important ones that I wanted to know right away.
Best of luck in your report and your recovery!
Mark
Posted 2/16/2009 6:33 PM (GMT -5)
Hope you get a fantastic post surgery pathology report, will be rooting for you, also happy you got the plastic snake out of your lower ends
Posted 2/16/2009 6:38 PM (GMT -5)
Mark,
Thanks for helping out with a list of questions. I will be asking all of them and more.
Posted 2/16/2009 11:12 PM (GMT -5)
Be sure you ask doctor Fagin for the actual pathology. I did and he immediately had the nurse take a picture and give it to me. I don't think he would have given it to me had I not asked. He will also give you a prescription for Viagra, and they will offer to sell a VED ($500). I took it - it is expensive, but it is a good one.

Also, I think their PSA reader only goes to .04 - whatever your reading you may want to inquire concerning. The removal of the catheter is not painful. A male nurse did mine, and he knew exactly what he was doing. Blessings.
Posted 2/17/2009 8:30 PM (GMT -5)
Don't forget to tell him (don't ask) you want a copy of the pathology report asap=now in your hands. Then read it and tell others like herein what is written down, then you can try to make heads or tails of the actual results, not verbage the doc may or may not mention fully. Orally is not the same thing or memories are fairly bad after a little while, too. Copy of such and tests are always good to have and totally useful when seeking second opinions.

Hope the results are decent. :-)
Posted 2/17/2009 8:55 PM (GMT -5)
I wish I had read this before I met him today. I will email him and ask him to mail me the pathology report. Thanks
Posted 2/17/2009 9:39 PM (GMT -5)
Yeah, you definitely need the hard copy, with all the original verbage, pre-intereptation by anyone.
Posted 2/17/2009 9:49 PM (GMT -5)
You know my visit with my catheter removal and my first post PSA ran together on me - my apology. I was thinking they were both at the same time and of course they are not. You will want to especially have your questions lined out when you T/W Dr. Fagin at your first post PSA. As you are asking for the pathology, I would also ask for the surgery report. The doc will have had something typed up about how the surgery went and what he did.

Now, just a comment on the non-nerve sparing. I don't know that I ever got a definitive answer about any nerves of mine spared, but he did state he cut a wider path - at the same time he stated "it is never all or nothing." This is a statement I have never quite understood (maybe someone out there has an answer). Regardless, I am 9 months post surgery and am beginning to have some life down south with Cialis - not enough life, but some. Also, be encouraged that there are other means - VED's (pumps), and injections. These are somewhat cumbersome, but better than no man life at all. The big deal for you appears the doc was successful in seeing to it you have no positive margins.
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply