Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Prostate Chemo Veterans here?

I've found myself in a "situation" starting in March.
One small part of the fun is advanced, probably metastasized, prostate cancer. They couldn't cut it away without sticking me on a catheter, so instead I got gelded and now they want to follow up with chemo infusions for like 21 weeks.
Don't need any thoughts and prayers, just some answers if anyone of you has been there:

Questions:
If you had the same fun, how bad was it for you?

Have you recovered well, or not?

Did you have any problems with immune depression?

Thanks much

Yep, been there done that. My Gleason score was really high so they rushed the surgery. Ended up later having chemo and radiation in muktiple episodes. But to shed some light, whatever the docs tell you may or may not be accurate. They never admit being infallible, so dont let them and their BS get you down. After the surgery and first episode of radiation, the all knowing doc told me that statistically (without me asking mind you) that I had a 40% chance of living 2 years. That was almost ten years ago. Keep your chin up and continue to march. Life is short, and way too short to bewasted worrying.

Okay, to the top, I'd like some direct answers please.
Yr hmbl svt
Dave Skinner

For me, it was surgery and when I had recurrence a year later, I had a combination of 39 daily radiation treatments and six months of hormone deprivation treatment. So far, so good. Undetectable psa for 3+ years.

Every case is different but the docs told me that if it recurred again, that hinted at distant metastases and we’d go to hormone deprivation until that didn’t work and then various chemo treatments. It sounds as if you’ve reached that point now. They’ve come up with some pretty effective combinations of drugs to fight it.
Good luck with your treatments. PCa sucks.

Watching this one for more input.

Do a search for “hormone refractory prostate cancer”. Prostate cancer needs testosterone to survive. Both orchiectomy and anti-androgen (hormone) therapy ensure that there is little or no testosterone which the cancer needs to thrive. Eventually, the cancer mutates enough where it can live without testosterone and you’ll see PSA starting up. As I mentioned earlier, it sounds like that’s where you are now.

If the PSA is going up with no testosterone in the blood, the next step is to attack it with chemo and there are some good treatments that have come about lately.

I have prostate cancer now for 22 years. was married for 56 years. wife passed 6 years ago. I had a normal sex life with a little help from a pump and a little balloon. my cancer is spreading into my bones ,but , with chemo is under some control.. don't be afraid they are improving medicine every day for it... good luck. Ignore my bad typing.

PS I am 84

Great attitude, Hubert.

Go with what ya got and plow forward.

Good luck, my PSA has gone up and down through the years, had three biopsies, couple ultra sounds, but no cancer so far.

My Vietnam veteran uncle came down with it 2 years ago. It was a lengthy process/ordeal for him. Long recovery and yes his immune system was very fragile to put it mildly. Her gets sick very easy now and his health is in worse condition now than before the treatments.

I had been diagnosed with it early. I was 57 then... I just had my prostate removed.

Couple years later, my PSA number started to rise, so I went to Cancer Treatment Center in Avondale AZ for 4 months...

received Low Dose Radiation for 15 minutes total Monday thru Friday, for that 4 months...

PSA has been pretty much zero ever since say the doctors....

Beside a leaky bladder, its been of little issue...

Some good knowledge there.
I get regular check ups. My cancer was well advanced when found. Very fast growing.
Could tell a funny story about being shaved for surgery with a nurse on one arm taking blood. One one on the other arm with a needle. Lady between my legs shaving and my wife practicing her stand up comedy routine. You Get the idea..
Cancer was outside the prostate so three months later I was in for radiation.

Very nice folks. They will tattoo som targets on you.. Took longer to take off my pants and get on the table than to get the dose. 1st 10 are easy. After than you begin to feel like something is happening inside. By the third set of 10 you are ready to stop. After 30 it is just a matter of getting it done.
No pain but I knew something was happening.

When you are in the treatment room and see the face masks for other patients on the shelf and walk past the Chemo room with the recliners and Tvs you understand how lucky you are.

In the waiting there arevsome very sick people.

I got three months out of radiation before I had to start taking the shots. Took a shot about every few months for two years.
Side effects were it is hard to walk and most of my body hair fell out. Thinned the hair on my head but still covered.

First shots in the hip. Last shots in the arm. I did not like them as there other side affects.

All chas slowed my shooting and deer hunting but I still call varmints.

I am told it will return someday but I may die of something else first.

Buy some loud boxer shorts. You will have some laughs during radiation.

If you want to talk blood clots after surgery we can go there. That hurt.

Okay, I'm seeing major negatives to chemo. Wrecked immune system? With Covid running crazy? Wow, that's wonderful.

My PSA was 137, two weeks after gelding, still 27.

Why did I blow up? Well, my bastard father (didn't know about him until I was 25) is a factor, he had both kidney and prostate cancers in his early 60s (I'm 62), but he smoked and worked in casinos, drank, just a bad boy. So that's bloodline.

But the confounding factor is, I'm already a "cancer survivor" (yeah, right) vintage 1976, Hodkins disease. Was pretty much fried from head to crotch, with some shielding of the brain, the lungs and the nuts. Was recovered in about 18 months, and "remission" after five years. But insurance companies wouldn't touch me after that. So for 45 years, I've avoided doctors except for physicals and blood work every two years, always coming back "ace," numbers all good, screaming good health. PSA two and a half years ago was like .5. So this jumped up crazy....from "monitor" to 8/10 score just like that, no "dysfunction" ever.

What I didn't know was that I'm in a "cohort" of radiated patients, and most of that cohort is dead, I'm like the "Last of the Nukehicans." Mortality at year 20 post-treatment was over 55 percent, I made it to year 45 which is off the freaking chart. Still, risk of stroke, heart damage, and "secondary cancers" are 14 (FOURTEEN) times normal. I had a visual stroke, which the Drs. thought was a conventional stroke, they never heard of Nukehicans. But my stroke made utterly no sense at all, as I had no family history nor any stroke "risk factors."

So on my own, I scheduled a body scan specific for cancers. Wow. Besides the prostate, I have at least three tumors, kidney (thanks, bastard dad), neck and central brain. In Feb, that's a long enough time frame for scans to determine what growth rates the other tumors show. The head and neck are both deep in the scary parts, super high risk.

So, the scans will determine if I could even bother with chemo, right? But if the scan comes back "good," and my immune system crashes, gee, what about Covid? Already had it once (asympto), then got jabbed, and will get a booster. I mean, if my immunity doesn't recover, what have I done, and how much of my remaining life and money have I wasted?

Dave just for the knowledge of it look into the PAE method of treatment.

I believe it’s being done at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio.

Whatever treatment you choose, do not choose no treatment.

My father died of prostate cancer, or rather, he died of dehydration and starvation. I stood beside him while he went through it. We had hunted, shot and flew all over together so we had plenty to talk about. Until he couldnt, then I talked.
Dont wish this on yourself. Choose Life.
Dont waste energy on the past and people you dont know. Let it goand focus your energy on beating this.

Dave, I wish you the best. Are you being treated at the Idaho Urologic Institute? The docs there are very good, or they were for me. No chemo but radiation treatment. Five years now with good low PSA test results.

Hang in there.

L.W.

I'm going through prostate cancer treatments now with the VA in Seattle. This has to be one of the best VA hospitals in the world. My doctor said that if you are going to get cancer, the prostate is the one to get because it is so easily controlled.

I'm too old (77) for surgery, so hormone deprivation (estrogen injections) are being used.

My doctor is the chief of prostate cancer research at the University of Washington, Seattle Care Alliance, and the Seattle VA.

The VA has concluded that I most likely was exposed to Agent Orange while in the Navy during many days of close shore bombing

VA, and a few friends in high places, have got me listed as 100% disabled due to AO.

The first few days, after being notified that I had prostate cancer was a bitch, but knowing I'm in good hands with the VA has eased the stress considerably.

As I said, I'm 77 and have lived a great life full of interesting work and a fabulous family.

Take care and God Bless.

W. Bill