Every time I feel any pain, especially when it is in my chest or lower back, the little birdie whispers to me that I have finally developed a bone met. What are just the normal aches and pains from getting older sometimes seem to magnify and turn on the worry switch. It isn’t dissimilar to the fear that men who are doing watchful waiting experience as they wait their PSA test results.
My mind and my imagination can sometimes get the better of me and take over my feelings. I suppose that this is a common experience many of us share in the earlier stages of fighting advanced prostate cancer.
However, I guess that it is a reasonable concern to have, but at my disease stage not yet probable. So I try and ignore it and go on about my business.
I don’t want to be a baby nor do I want to be a complainer so I don’t share the concern or the discomfort. I know that sometime in the future the pain will be a met, but I will not mention it until the pain becomes very severe.
It is not a Macho thing; I just don’t want to further burden my family.
Joel T Nowak MA, MSW
Joel, you have been inside my head again. I had to interrupt my clinical trial chemo regimen to treat a staph infection. Instead of 3 weeks between treatments, I stretched the delay to 6 weeks. I had little twinges in my back that gave me pause.
The good news is that benchmark scans at 5 weeks showed no new mets, plus my PSA had dropped from 11 to 8.5.
These little worries to creep into your head and try to spread like the disease, itself.
Thank you for putting into words how I have felt since shortly after being diagnosed with Stage III PCa a year and a half ago. I have had loved ones tell me I am being negative to think about the mets, but that is easy for them to say. My GS is 9 (5+4)and I’m 53, so I know there will come a day when metastasis becomes a reality. I don’t think anyone diagnosed with advanced PCa is able to put these thoughts out of their mind
Joel,
Some mets don’t hurt some men, sometimes. I have them in scapula, ribs, spine, hips and new ones appeared in arm and hand when ADT failed over the last couple months, but the only way that I know they are their is the scans. The one on my left rib was sufficiently bad before ADT that I actually fractured the rib, which then hurt a little when lying down.
Joel,
I was Dx at 42. I had RP at Johns Hopkins by the famous Dr. Partin. I was Gleason 6 organ confined. I was told by J.H. chance of reccurrence is “very rare.” 99.6% of their patients don’t have it come back. You would think I could sleep at night and not worry whenever I get a pain to. Not so. Cancer has destroyed what’s left of my life. I know I am a lot luckier then a lot of people, but I somehow think that having it at 42 makes it more aggressive none the less. I guess we will all have to hang in until the end….