We asked him if they couldn't farm out the treatments localy so he
wouldn't have to drive so far, he said they told him no. He was laid up
for a very long time after the surgery. there was some sort of lump down
at his taint meat (for lack of a better word) area between his yoo hoo
and hi anus. He was miserable, couldn't sit without pillows, had to lay
on his side and was real slow walking. His PSA was like .05 or something
which we all thought was good but apparently they thought differently.

You are right about doctors just wanting patients to be docile and do
what they are told, that's for sure. I'm a stage 4 colon cancer patient.
My oncologist would go balistic if anyone questioned anything she said
or did , she did not like to be challenged. She was quick to tell me
however that there was no cure and no hope of beating it, that she was
just keepng me alive as long as possible with chemo whch I found to be
extremely depressing and not much help or comfort. Her patients would
all just climb in the chemo chairs, wrap up in blankets, take whatever
they were given without qestion and sleep. I on the other hand asked
questions, wanted to knw what I was given and  what it may or may not do
to me. She didn't like that and after 8 months of chemo when my bone
marrow (platlets, white & red blood cells) was crashing and my liver
numbers were of the scale from chemo toxicity and CT scans showed a
possible recourance happening, she decided to fire me for asking too
many questions. The new Onc my HMO gave me didn't even want to see me.
he said I had to go on chemo break for 3-4 months and hasn't even
monitored my blood. I have sigent ring cell cancer along with the colon
cancer which they tell me is extreely aggressive and therefore I should
not be off chemo for any extended period of time, so who do you beleive?
All I know is this onc hasn't even give me the time of day for 3 months.
My primary doc ageed to at least test my CEA every month and that is
rising  by 50% every month. So yesterday out of sheer panick I lost my
cool and fired this onc, so now we are one for one. One fired me and I
fired one. Made me feel good at the time but then it sank in that now I
have no onc. no one to even flush the port and nearly 12 of the 18
months they said I'd most likely live are gone. Both the oncs agreed
that I needed to get on a clinical trial since I apparently failed 1st
line chemo but they both refused to help me find one, said they were too
busy. I suspect it was because there was o money in it for them. Oh well
enough ranting about me this was supposed to be for my freind with
prostate cancer. You struck a nerve with me when you said  

"I'm beginning to suspect that happens way too often with patients who
just sit back and let the docs take care of everything. I consider that
shameful, "

And I guess it just had to come off my chest. I'm very angry with the
medical system right now. It was my regular doctor's mistake in
overlooking anemia low iron in my blood tests that allowed my colo
cancer to go undetected until I was in pain and decided to go to the ER.
I will advise him about the books you said to get and thank you for the
advice. ou are right, he is very passive, hates to make waves or rock
the boat and is subject to take things far to seriously. When they at
first told him the biopsy results showed him to be high on the scale he
was ready to arange his funeral and very depressed so his wife has to
take care in what she even tells him and how she tells it.
.



Re: Radiation side effects?  

Group: sci.med.prostate.cancer Date: Mon, Dec 4, 2006, 7:47pm (EST-3)
From: fuhgheddaboutit@noway.nohow (I.P. Freely)
J W wrote:
Thanks, Our freind is a senior (65) and a veteran, He's having to drive
175 miles to tampa every week to the VA hospital for these treatments.
The VA offered to let me be treated locally at their expense so I could
avoid the 220-mile/3-hour drive to their hospital, but it's a bit late
for your friend to do that now.
I don't think they are telling him much of anything.
I'm beginning to suspect that happens way too often with patients who
just sit back and let the docs take care of everything. I consider that
shameful, considering how personal the treatment choices are, due to
their long and complex lists of benefits and side effects. Different
patients rank the side effect menu in very different orders.
They at first told him from his
biopsy that he was pretty far advanced on some scale I think he said it
was gleason or something like that. Then when they operated to remove it
they said only a small portion was advanced and the rest was not bad.
Those are implications that recurrence is likely, but at this second
treatment level, informed personal choice become MUCH more critical,
because the benefits are much less and the potential or likely side
effects ARGUABLY much worse.
He has been home in a lot of pain healing for several months now.
Prostate surgery shouldn't hurt much even a few days later, let alone
two weeks or months later; he should feel better in a couple of months
than he felt before the surgery, because by then the surgery is ancient
history and he should have been walking and/or exercising quite a bit to
help recovery. Some patients feel like playing football 6 weeks post-op.
Then they said they wanted him to take this radiation just to be
sure that everything was knocked out.
I wonder if he really needed the radiation.
That's one approach. Or one can wait until a simple blood test for PSA
shows an increasing PSA and treat then or not, or one can wait until
scans show remote metastasis and treat THAT . . . there's no clear
solution. The only certainty is that further treatment WILL cause
further side effects. This all requires extensive patient education,
analysis, and decision-making . . . or a truly GREAT doctor VERY in tune
with the patient's innermost quality of life value system.
He was tolerating it fine up until last weekend his wife told us at
church he was having a lot of pain urinating and had blood in it. He was
going to ask about it this week. It didn't sound good to me.
Darn right. But his doc should have warned him it would probably occur,
given him some criteria for calling the doc, and been ready to
prescribe meds and/or behaviors to mitigate the symptoms.
If your friend is willing to tolerate surgery pain for more than a day
(that's what drugs are for) or painful bloody urine for more than 5
minutes without RUNNING to the hospital, he NEEDS someone to watch out
for him in this case and with whatever else happens to him next. He must
be either very afraid of medicine or just very passive, neither of which
serves us old people well. If he has any family, please clue them in
that he needs to be closely watched for the sake of his health even if
his prostate cancer is completely cured.
I.P.