Just found out....

[DAVIDHALL]

[quote:5ba9f1f25e="Grindi"]Sorry to hear that Bobby. My friend got that about 3 years ago. They implanted a radioactive thingamajiggy in him. The cancer is all gone now. He said it was virtually painless..[/quote:5ba9f1f25e]

That sounds like what my dad had done about 3 years ago also, brachytherapy (or something like that) I think it's called. They implant radioactive seeds into the prostate that are active for about 3-4 months. As Grindi said, virtually painless, and my dad is now cancer-free as well.

[Treyomo]

Bobby -

The best advice I can give from my experience is two-fold:

- It's better to be an active listener than to have the perfect words to say;

- Do anything Boni or her father need

I know you're way ahead of me on these suggestions - just wanted you to know that I found people who provided these to be the most helpful in our time of need. I wish you and your family the best.

[bsolheim]

All the best to your family Bobby.

[B.o.b.b.y...]

I am just so grateful. The support and PMs have been so helpful that I cannot express in words how much Boni and I appreicate the support. This situation strikes all of us in some form or another in our lives. I was overwhelmed with happiness and joy for treyomo's daughter this past week. I do believe in miracles and it was great to see his post on her recovery. Boni and I will hold hands and pray for the best. My father-in-law is a Reverend of the Disciple of Christ Church who has been "lecturing" his Catholic son-in-law for almost 20 years. The world needs more people like him because he's an incredible man. I said this before and I need to repeat it......our community is the best....Thanks...Bobby

[NEILKAHN]

What I was tought in med school was that people generally die with prostate cancer, instead of from it, which means that even untreated it is fairly slow growing. Now, of course, there are an array of treatment strategies. It is rare that I see or hear about someone with huge complications from prostate ca., and those are people that had metastatic disease already at the time it was diagnosed. The biggest problem with treatment has been some of the GU functional problems that ensued sometimes. For example, a radical prostatectomy can often leave a person impotent. A turp is a transurethral procedure which does not ruin the nervous connections to the region, but I do not know about you, but AAAAAGGGGGHHHHH. Going up through the penis with a sharp implement is not my idea of fun. Also, it can sometimes be associated with incontinence. Sometimes they try to suppress the tumor with hormonal manipulations, but this involves reducing the male hormones, and sometimes even increasing the female hormones, and, well, that may be alright for some of you, but if I had breasts, as Steve Martin once said, I would waste all of my time playing with them, and I would accomplish nothing else.. The Urologist really ought to sit down with you and discuss these things, and answer any questions you have....but who are we kidding? If he enjoyed talking to people he would have gone into a specialty in which people were awake more of the time. And Medicare pays us to cut, not to talk....I am about as far removed from this area as I can be, but my impression is that some combo of surgery, cryo where they freeze the tumor, and follow up radiation is what they generally do. The radiation involves the implanted "seeds" and is usually tolerated very well, I think. So he should be around for a very long time to come, I should think. The radiation may mean he is through having children, but unless he can get the attention of Anna Nicole Smith, I should hope this is not a hardship.