Becky,

I'm not a doctor, just a veteran of this.  Yes, that is a normal waiting
time.  In fact I put the doctor off for six weeks or so because I had
something else to do.  Then it was another five or six weeks before surgery.

How advanced the cancer is can be estimated pretty well using the patient's
PSA reading, Gleason score, and clinical stage.  You can even do that on
line at http://urology.jhu.edu/Partin_tables/

You should stop worrying and be patient.  Prostate cancer is almost always
slow-growing.  Of course, if you can't sleep, maybe your father could call
for an earlier appointment.

jimhoney
standard RRP age 52, cured, no significant aftereffects

hi becky - welcome to the club of the waiting.  sucks doesn't it.  and i
guess that is the worse part of the whole ordeal - the waiting.  

to give you some idea what can happen. i will use my case.  i found out
in oct i had an elevated psa, they gave me some antibiotics, then in
nov, they took it again, it came down a little bit, but still elevated,
then scheduled me to see the doctor in dec.  he scheduled me for a
biopsy in jan and i will finally told in feb, and finally got treatment
in apr.  

you can only imagine the thoughts that go through my mind as i can only
imagine what goes through the minds of the loved ones.

the good news, is that MOST of the time the cancer is slow growing.  i
have an idea that if it wasn't, your doctor would have moved things up a
lot faster.  so, assuming it is the "usual" prostate cancer, then he's
in the traffic jam of life waiting to get to the next stage of events.

hang in there and feel free to rant, rave, and whatever you feel you
have to do to vent some of that frustration.  that is what you are here
for and yes,  we do understand.

~ curtis

knowledge is power - growing old is mandatory - growing wise is optional    
"Many more men die with prostate cancer than of it. Growing old is
invariably fatal. Prostate cancer is only sometimes so."

Becky,

What were your Dad's results on the PSA and biopsy, and
how old is he?  I presume you've gotten this info already.
If not, I'd call the doctor's office and insist on getting it
right away.

If the Gleason score is 6 or below, the PSA is not too high
(e.g. well under 10), and his age is relatively advanced, e.g.,
over 65, then odds are good that he has a very slow growing
cancer that might take years to metastasize.

If the above conditions do not obtain, then time becomes
more important.

Nevertheless, whatever the situation, knowing that you're
facing a life threatening disease and being told to wait 6 weeks
is hard to bear.  Some things you might try are 1) Call the
doctor's office and try to speed things up.  2) Get the ball
rolling on second opinions now - without waiting for the
first opinion to be complete.  Desirable second opinions
include sending the biopsy slides to another lab for their
analysis, and seeing a specialist in the alternative treatment
to the primary specialist.  If the primary specialist is a surgeon,
the alternative is a radiation oncologist, and vice versa.  It
may take weeks to set those up too and you could get all
that waiting done in parallel instead of sequentially with the
first wait.

That's 2 cents worth of medical information and advice
from a non-doctor whose advice is probably worth even
less than the advertised price.

   Alan

I don't know anything else about your father's symptoms, numbers, results,
etc., but it is perfectly normal to wait to do anything until a few weeks
after a biopsy.  It's usually best to wait for the holes to heal and for any
possible infection to dissipate.

Becky:
   I was diagnosed in April and the doctor waited to do the surgery until
August.  He said that the prostate is affected by the biopsy in some way and
that he wanted time for everything to heal before going in.  I did not get
much more detail than that, but I have heard others here say that their
doctors wanted time to pass for things to heal after the biopsy.
   For comparison, I was 55 when diagnosed, PSA 5.0, PSA free 6%, and
Gleason 6.  The biopsy had cancer cells in 2 specimens of 6 reported (he
took 10), and it was 6% invasion.  You need to get these details in order to
better understand where you stand.  People here will help you make sense of
the numbers.
   Good luck to you and your father.
   Thank you.
David S.