Based on my experience, you can expect urinary irritation towards the end of
your treatments and that can be mitigated by lots of walking and lots of
water intake.  However, I fully expect that I will have a gradual
degradation of contenence due to radiation.  It just seems to make sense
unless the body replenishes the cells as fast as they self-destruct.

However, if my Gleason was a 9, I don't think I'd consider continence in my
decision-making criteria.  You need to be absolutely sure there are not
Gleason 9 cells left in your body.

Guys I have yet another question. I had LRP on Aug 24th. Doing fine
recovering. Urinary control is getting better. Erections are mostly OK.
BUT, Now I have to have radiation. When I got the path report the
margins at the urethra were positive and the gleason went from 3+3 to 9
(don't know breakdown) so the Docs were not willing to wait for a change
in psa but want to do radiation immediately. Ok, so now the question.
From those of you with experience should I expect backsliding in the
urinary control area as a result of the radiation? I have read the stats
on ED from radiation so I have an idea what to expect there.
Thanks
Bob
diag 6/11/04 t2a gleason 3+3
LRP 8/24/04 T3a gleason 9
planning to be a cancer survivor
==============

hi bob - i think that the main point of all of this right now should be
when you said -
"When I got the path report the margins at the urethra were positive and
the gleason went from 3+3 to 9 (don't know breakdown)"

since you don't know the breakdown, here it is in simple form.  the
scale goes from 1 to 10 with 10 being the MOST aggressive growing cancer
cells.  you have a 9.  AND you had positive margins.

the question back to you would be - are you willing to take the chance
about not having radiation and if the prostate cancer were to come back
try to catch it and deal with it at that time or are you wanting to go
ahead - get radiated - and kill it or the kill the chance of it coming
back and suffer from any side effects that radiation may bring.  i think
your last statement explains your view - planning to be a cancer
survivor.  so, if you are planning on being a survivor, you have to go
with what it takes to save your life and forego the nice things in life
and hope you get them back at the end of the radiation.

it would be nice to keep the erections and the continence after the
ordeal is over, but these are the cards that are on the table with the
stakes as high as they are.

i'm in  your corner for undetectable psa's forever.

~ 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."