Are both cancers primary?

Interesting idea Bill.  It decreases the total trauma to
the body (only one anaesthesia instead of two) but it
increase the trauma that you have to recover from
at one time.

I wonder if the patient would feel "Ouch my face and
my belly both hurt!",  or "Hmmm, my face hurts so much
I didn't even notice my belly hurting."

   Alan

No bowel bag. Both procedures went by the book Thur 28 Oct, with no
complications yet other than a catheter replacement after one plugged
yesterday. If I worked in an office, I'd be back at work this Monday.

Both are primary. The PC Gleason grade was an 8, but surgical margins were
negative. The carcinoid tumor was very large but was detectable in only 2 of
35 lymph nodes removed for pathology. They hope it's history, will track it
aggressively.

As for the colonoscopy while under, I don't notice them wide awake. I've had
two with zero drugs, and find them much less noticeable than your basic
everyday toe stub or lip bite. I could read a magazine during a colonoscopy
if I weren't so occupied watching the doc's screen and kibitzing the
process. Then I put on my pants and drive back to work or play. The
"secret"? Fart. Let the gas out. Our colons perceive only stretch; as long
as we let the gas flow freely (as it does while we're under), there's no
stretch, thus no pain, not even when they cut out a chunk for biopsy or
polyp removal. But if I were due for one and were under anyway, may as well
get a twofer.

As for avoiding surgery . . . that wasn't even in my treatment decsion tree.
I tend to sleep through invasive surgeries, so that part's a loss. Then I
spend a few days in recovery, then I go home until I can take care of
myself, then I go back to work or play. SO FAR, my surgeries (half a dozen,
including inner ear removal, shoulder repair, and this surgery) haven't been
a big deal. I have yet to feel any pain from this surgery other than from a
few hiccups. DRUGS, man, DRUGS! I was walking around the ward upright two
days post-op, around the third floor three days out. Just don't expect
reliable comprehension and thought.

I.P.

No, you are not wrong.  Nevertheless, keep busy.  I play on the computer, dance
in The Nutcracker, read, joke with the other patients, ta-ta!  I had surgery
two months after  biopsy, but it didn't work and I am still fighting, three and
a half years after surgery.  Prognosis is difficult.  My doc said he would keep
me alive 10 years.  8 of those to go...;-}

Yes, you might be depressed.  But, you are getting treatment, right?  If
this is Chris, you're on Lupron, right?

But, to answer your question, a tumor anywhere outside your prostate is bad
news.  But, it's still not the end.  Maybe even terminally bad news, but
there are several treatments that will stave off death for awhile.

Wrong in being depressed after half  year? I don't think so.. My initial
docs @ PSA 8.8 and Gleason 8 told me a month of research
and decision-making would do no harm, but two months was more game-playing
than they would advise. Every moment them little cancer cells are mutating
and circulating, looking for an "M-class planet" that will accept and
nurture them. Once they find an accepting site, most likely a lymph node or
some bone, and take microscopic root, our clock starts ticking.

The VA wouldn't accelerate my flu shot to protect me while in the hospital
for surgery they're paying for, but the county said, "Sure, we'll allow you
the shot (61, otherwise healthy)". So I paid my $20 for flu insurance. The
docs wanted me to get it at two weeks pre-surg or well afterwards to avoid
interaction.

The post-op prostate and prostate bed autopsy/pathology will tell the docs a
great deal about your prognosis. That opportunity was one of the primary
reasons I chose surgery even before the unrelated colon cancer appeared. I
want to know all I can, becasue this is a classic case of "knowledge is
power". The more we know about our own case, the better we can fight it and
plan around it. I've been far too busy researching my case, its options, and
its potential affects of my lifestyle to even think about what it may do to
my LIFE. It'll take this stuff many years to kill me, and long before that
it will affect my day-to-day living.

But I tell ya, the VA was willing to move at a snail's pace. When they set
up my first specialty consultation > 3 months after my biopsy, I said
"enough of this" and took the bull by the horns. I began approaching
surgeons directly, with my Gleason score as my ticket in the door, and by
the time that initial consult rolled around (actually it hasn't; it's 15
Nov), I had undergone 10-12 tests (e.g., biopsies, MRIs, CTs, X-rays,
multiple blood and urine workups, other nuclear medicine scans taking days),
had at least 17 appointments with at least 10 doctors in 6 different medical
facilities spread over 230 miles under three different "HMOs" (VA, primary
insurance, and secondary insurance). We coordinated every step with the
appropriate HMO in advance, made sure my records made each appointment
(hand-carrying if necessary, especially with visits an hour apart or 230
miles apart), brought my X-rays and MRIs and CTs and OctreoScan and multiple
biopsy results with me to each new physician, made sure new docs had
previous biopsy samples if they wanted to re-evaluate them, proposed to two
surgeons in different departments that they combine two surgeries related
only by their anatomical proximity in my abdomen (the internet revealed both
surgeries used the same incision) so I had to get opened up only once, made
sure each physician's office had the direct phone numbers of my other
physicians' offices if they had any reason to confer with them, kept up with
very confusing billing and payments -- and, oh yeah - had two major
surgeries performed at once . . . all in about ten weeks. That would have
taken half a year, maybe much more, if I had just let it happen
spontaneously under my socialized medicine plan (the VA), and neither of my
problems had that much time to spare.

Of course, under the Democrats' published socialized health care plan (this
isn't a political comment; it's simply a fact gathered from reading the
plan), all those doctors and I would now be in prison for choosing each
other. We in this group can thank God that plan was belayed for at least
four more years.

I.P.