(No Subject)

I do not agree with you post due to the fact that you have minor SE from RT! You are painting a false picture of RT and confusing facts with emotions. Again, you refuse to address the SE from surgery and are living in fantasyland! The more I read your post the more aggravated I get!

Thanks you are all right .....I appreciate your input ...no more whining

dbell said...
I do not agree with you post due to the fact that you have minor SE from RT! You are painting a false picture of RT and confusing facts with emotions. Again, you refuse to address the SE from surgery and are living in fantasyland! The more I read your post the more aggravated I get!

DBell, if I dare to lock horns with you on this, as I believe we had somewhat of a confrontation some months ago regarding A/S. Please forgive me if I have in fact confused you with someone else, or if this post comes off as too offensive, but here goes...

Stan is having a hard time with his choice of treatments. While I do not recall his stats, it appears that YOUR situation was entirely different from his. You had a low PSA and small amount of favorable grade cancer, which was easily treated by "your choice" of radiation. Not everyone was so fortunate. And not everyone had access to top line facilities and plenty of time to make their decision.

It seems that anyone who even mentions SE's from radiation here are shouted down by the crowd. Those of us who had a more difficult time of it dare to even mention that ALL forms of treatment have SE's, especially when new brothers are asking for information and literally everyone recommends that they should start with radiation. That is not fair, not to the new guys and not to those of us who are living with serious side effects from multiple therapies.

Stan, yes you are venting a bit too much, but I understand. When you are wallowing in despair it is natural to grasp at any sort of lifeline. I have had my own emotional issues surrounding this disease, and have some understanding of what you are going thru. My RO was no help at all. I suggest that you emphasize to your primary care physician that you are experiencing an emotional crisis due to your cancer treatment. You may need to be AGGRESSIVE with your doctor. I had to essentially demand an antidepressant... even did research to make recommendations and provided supporting documents.

Your doc should not be too resistant to starting you on an A/D which could make all the difference in the world to your emotional well being. After all, it is estimated that one in three cancer patients suffer depression. And if you are a vet, call your local VA clinic. The first thing they will ask is if you are suicidal and will help you immediately. This is no joke. This is serious.

It's about something called... compassion.

another thing. when i had my last IGRT session and "graduated" i felt lost. then came the PSA rollercoaster ride which will really mess with your head. get help man.

Stan, i feel your pain. When i first came here, i was posting a new thread with every new fear that entered my head. So its understandable that you are whining. Yeah, you are a bit over the top, but thats ok, nobody should make you feel guilty about it. We are here to support and part of that is listening, and sometimes that means letting a member who is having a hard time, vomit all over us.
Almost everyone here will support you in any way possible, even if it means just "listening" to you whine.

With that said, i have to agree with what Tall Allen said....you did the absolute right thing by investigating, investigating again, and then investigating more. And you did not make a bad decision choosing Radiation. Sure it has its downside. But so does surgery. The first few days after i had my catheter out, i was p!ssing all over myself, and also had massive pain in my chest and shoulders from the gas they pumped into me, that lasted about a week. If you were going through that right now, we would, I'm sure, be hearing about it. ad nauseum lol. And thats ok.

The concern i guess some are showing is that by posting your troubles you might sway some new guys that show up here away from radiation, or worse, away from doing their due dilligence. I think that the number of guys here that push people (like you and me) to actually make no decision until they understand ALL their options, will outweigh any one member that says not to do so. But do keep in mind the effect that our words have on newly diagnosed.

Now i need to put my moderator hat on. ..... Can we all take a step back, and remember that this is a support forum? And people come here for knowledge, but also support. No matter how much a member complains or whines, or whatever word you want to use, its a cry for help. So maybe if one of us cant help, or doesnt want to help, we should just refrain from posting on the thread in question. There are enough guys here who will help. The last thing a guy like Stan needs right now, is to get pounded on.

dbell said...
RobLee, yea I guess we did lock horns a bit previously but its is all good! Just like I tend to be pro-RT, you tend to be pro-surgery. I was not arguing RT over removal here! My reaction was more to Stan saying you should not consult many doctors in your decision process and that RT usually performed only after surgery failed (paraphrase) etc. Also, RobLee you mention at the end of your quote that Stan did not have time to make a decision? Why not??? If I recall, he had a low PSA and a low grade Gleason as well, btw! Also, I see you mention compassion??? If you want compassion...which everyone showed on his prior post...don't post statements which are not helpful to the group in terms of the process for seeking any and every kind of treatment!!

Thank you for replying. Hopefully I wasn't too hard on you. Yours was the first reply to Stan's umpteenth post and I didn't sense a whole lot of empathy in there. He is wallowing is despair because he hurts and to him it is not just minor SE's. If this were a female dominated forum (as many tend to be) the ambience here would be totally different. Thank goodness we are more to the point here.

I am neither pro surgery nor anti RT. (BTW my late father was a RO.) As stated, I don't recall Stan's stats. I can blame it on Lupron, as that always makes a good excuse. Or perhaps it is Stan's own particular style of writing (wink). My choice was based upon a number of factors. Every case is different. In many cases, second guessing or decision remorse and regret over the path not taken are not uncommon. Guilt is the easiest emotion to harbor and the most difficult to shed.

My tag line in another forum is "Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you cannot see". The unquoted text that follows is "be gentle". You are correct that Stan is acting emotionally rather than rationally. He does need help. A year ago, Pratoman and a few others urged me to join HW after I had a meltdown on another forum. Not to in any way minimize what you may have gone thru yourself. But sometimes I read what sounds like "well I didn't have any trouble with (you name it) and so you shouldn't either".

We all have our own approach to life. Not all of us are Drill Sargeants.
I recognize both my strengths and my weaknesses and I act accordingly,

Be a bit instrospective sometimes. It’s good for the soul.

Any treatment has side effects and side effects vary from person to person. I had radiation treatment twice. The first time brachytherapy in 2011. In the first two years I had practically no side effects. Then a bad case of blood in urine for just a few days. Second time, I had cyberknife for extraprostatic cancerous mass in 2017. Again this time, no significant side effects. The side effects I have now is from ADT before and after cyberknife. But overall the side effects are not intolerable.

Anyone thinking about radiation treatment should not get the wrong idea that side effects are unmanageable. Often radiation treatments have less side effects than surgery. Unlike surgery, incontinence is not an usual side effect of radiation treatment.

If I've learned anything in my 3 1/2 years in this forum it's that every combination of treatment + individual patient is unique. Some guys sail through their selected treatment like nothing really happened, while others struggle every hour of every day of treatment. Who knows why?

Stan, no one can truly say if you made a good decision or a bad one. What can be said is that the decision is made--and you have to live with it. We can hope that six months from now, when you're on the other side of it, that your cancer is under control and that life is good. In the mean time, it's rough. Try to stay in today. Today can be a good day--if you look for the good. Even in the smile of the rad tech, or in the conversation in the waiting room.

You can get through this--many have before you.

No biggie Rob...don't mind me...im justa thinka not a stinka...Apollo Creed..
I would never want to muzzle anyone for any reason...other than the std template...yelling fire an a crowded theater falsely...blah...blah..blah… My fault is I expect to much of folks...but I will not stop doing that...compassion is a virtue...that is best left unspoken...as it leaks the power from the receiver to the deceiver...at the conceivers expense in a duping fashion...this is actually true of all virtues...

again I have no idea where that came from...but keep em coming...see what censoship does...it encourages pretension...of course I know where it comes from...IM not stupid..and neither is the HW forum

Stan1961,,,, You sound like me last year. But I was kicking myself for NOT finding this site and looking into other treatments except RARP. I jumped into RP blind. Results, all nerves removed. total incontinence and ED. Penis shrinkage,VED and injections. Injection of Trimix was extremely painful. 30% are allergic to it. Next, Trimix caused pyronies disease. 15 degree bend to the right at mid ship. Oh yea,, Still dealing with incontinence. Next step,, Implant. Extreme pain with healing process. Still No orgasm at 1 year post rp even with an implant. Have to pump the implant to max pressure daily which causes an extreme pain that I can only withstand for 15 minutes a day. ( only need to do this for another year) Hard penis with no where to go with it. Good news,, incontinence mostly cured and PSA .05 I am healthy and dealing daily with my choice to go with surgery. There is the other side of the coin. I was suffering from PTSD in Sept of last year dealing with my decision and these guys heard all about it. I wish you well in your journey.