An early check meant my prostate cancer was caught early. It was showing signs of aggressiveness, and I’m too young (60-plus) for management strategies that may only last 10-15 years. So, surgery. Robotic surgery these days is extremely good, and the likelihood of damage to nerves greatly minimized. I had no consequences, but went into it with as much fitness as I could muster up in nine months (which was a lot, as it happened). It’s still major surgery with a definite recovery period, unlike some laparoscopic procedures, but nobody should be so afraid of it that they let it go. Robotic surgery has changed the calculus of “watchful surveillance” for younger patients, in my view.
But I would have missed it altogether but for the symptoms of an enlarged prostate leading to a PSA test.
Catching it early means clear margins, no metastization, zero PSA, and no future of radioactive treatments or hormone therapies.
No celebratory watch, however. That came after the six-month blood test.
—Rick