By Dan
You may be sitting there looking at the title now and thinking to yourself, wow are they going to serve this the next time I go to Wilson’s Cafeteria. Not too appetizing for sure. Well I am just trying to bring in a little humor the best I can considering I have cancer of the prostate and I was offered a lot of options to choose from for treatment when the doctor told me what I now am faced with and I said kind of like a smorgasbord huh doc. I know from my own wife who had breast cancer that the attitude is key and when I think it needs to be positive I like to turn to the light note and humor as my method of mentality. Please note here I said when she had breast cancer it is now in the past tense. With this blog time I will lightly touch on what and how I came about as my choice to treat my disease. Some may know of some of the options men have in this situation but again some may not I will touch on these plus some complications one may face when making these choices. Lets first say I have all the choices available because I am lucky I caught it early because I get my PSA tests every year so guys get in there and get um done it is only a blood test. I will start with the old fashion way first been used for a long long time and that is ouch castration yup that will certainly solve the problem mmmm I am not ready for that one. Another was the prostatectomy which is removal of the prostate of course the surgeons love this one. The complications here could be impotence, urinary incontinence, bowel complications, and narrowing of the urethra and may require a catheter. I think here a lot may choose this due it just rids the body of the organ and cuts it right out goodbye cancer mmm, hopefully. The next one is radiation therapy of course the idea here is to kill the cancer cells and hopefully not kill the good ones lets hope here the Doctor is a good shot. There are different ways to implement these some better than others and depend on your stages. These are external beam and internal beam by seeding, this one with small seeds planted in the prostate which have radiation in them. There are others all with the use of the radiation. Radiation can cause skin reactions, upset stomach, diarrhea, rectal bleeding and bowel function issues. Cryotherapy is a different way it is freezing the tumor allowed to thaw then freeze again this can kill bad cells and good cells both these can cause either incontinence or impotence or both. One that I gave thought more of is called Hi-Fu this however is not FDA approved and is performed outside of the U.S. It is a high heat ultrasound energy targeted to focal points of the gland at a high of 195 degrees. The side effects are less and results seem to be very good and it has been practiced now about 10 years but although we make the machine here in the U.S. we can not use it here, go figure. The side effects are less in a lot of cases and have been approved in 30 countries but of course we are still testing it. Thank You FDA. The one I chose is called Prostate Immune-Therapy it is basically the use of your own dendritic cells that are removed from your body boosted up and returned to have your own immune system beat the disease.
This is being done for me in Mexico and is similar to what my wife had done and the side effects she had was close to nothing except a flu like fever when she had her hyperthermia prior to the cell injections. This procedure is done in the U.S. however, here you have to apply for it be stage 4 or 5 and already been through the mill with other treatments also including chemo which I failed to mention before. I have to laugh on how we work all these treatments in our country the best ones with least side effects we as citizens are not allowed them unless you pay the price physically or financially or both and mb have to leave the country. The choice I made has been based on my wife having her treatment and seeing the results, my physical condition of which I have 8 heart stents due to heart disease and the quality of life which I thought was key for me . I will soon going to Mexico to start my treatments and will be writing about them as I receive them so keep reading if you wish to be informed. Just remember knowledge is key here so as to make your choice if ever needed. Till another day take care.
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