Interestingly, the writer's name is Dana Jennings. He has prostate cancer, too. I find his story similar to mine. He makes a very good point--many people think prostate cancer is a good cancer because men typically die "with" prostate cancer, not "from" prostate cancer.
Almost 30,000 men die every year from prostate cancer. We don't have a nationwide campaign to warn men of this cancer like the women have for breast cancer.
Remember "there is no such thing as a good cancer."
My Gleason score is the same as Dana Jennings' (9). He was diagnosed at 51. I was diagnosed at 54. He had a radical open prostatectomy. So did I. His pre-surgery numbers and staging were low. So were mine. His post-surgery numbers soared from an apparently run-of-the-mill prostate cancer to an actually aggressive star among such cancers. Same as mine.
If that doesn't make men want to be screened for prostate cancer in their 40s, I don't know what will. Please, men, don't wait for symptoms. I had no symptoms!
A PSA test is a simple blood test. It costs about $30 and is covered by insurance. If your PSA is above normal (around 3.5), your doctor might want to do a digital rectal exam. Yes, it's humiliating and uncomfortable, but it could save your life if your cancer is caught early enough.
Anyway, read Dana Jennings' story just below. It's worth the read.
The Good Cancer?
More than two million American men are currently living with prostate cancer, yet the national conversation about the disease consistently falls short. My colleague Dana Jennings, a writer and editor for The Times, was diagnosed with prostate cancer seven months ago. He has generously offered to share some of his experiences with the disease as a regular contributor to the Well blog.
By Dana Jennings
There is no such thing as a “good cancer.” When my prostate cancer was diagnosed last April, I can’t tell you how many well-meaning friends and acquaintances said: “At least you have a good cancer.” What they were trying to say is that prostate cancer is often very treatable when detected in its early stages. Even so, nearly 30,000 American men died last year of “the good cancer.”
Dana Jennings. (Lonnie Schlein/The New York Times)My cancer did appear to fall within the range of the ordinary. Treatment is still treatment, though, and a prostatectomy, no matter the method, is major surgery, with the twin shadows of impotence and incontinence always present.
But after my radical open prostatectomy on July 7, the pathology report revealed that my cancer wasn’t so ordinary, after all, and showed what one doctor called a “somewhat extraordinary scenario.” My apparently run-of-the-mill prostate cancer was actually an aggressive star among such cancers.
Rather than being a typically slow and pokey prostate cancer, mine had marched beyond the prostate and invaded a seminal vesicle and other tissue. It was a pure and aggressive prostate cancer. I soared from pre-surgery Gleason scores of 6 or 7 (two different hospitals, two different scores) to a Gleason of 9 — the higher the number on this scale of 10 the worse the news — and from having a probable Stage 1 cancer to a Stage 3: Stage T3B to be exact.
Some men with Gleason 9’s do well, my doctors say, others don’t. And even if I go into remission after my current treatment of hormonal therapy coupled with radiation, there’s still a 50 percent chance that the cancer will return.
I’m 51 and married, have two sons (19 and 22), and I’m on the young side to have prostate cancer. If my cancer had been “ordinary,” if the prostate had been simply snipped out with only the usual complications (which are significant), I might not have felt compelled to write about it.
But I’ve been living with my cancer for more than seven months now, and have taken to regularly writing down my experiences and feelings about the disease in a journal to help me cope with — and try to understand — the very personal challenges it presents. Despite the prevalence of prostate cancer (nearly 200,000 new cases are diagnosed each year), I have found my diagnosis to be surprisingly isolating, partly because, in my view, the national conversation about prostate cancer is lacking. It dwells on statistics and treatment, and ignores deeper issues.
Doctors tend to default to mere competent professionalism, forgetting to talk directly to the scared flesh-and-blood man bearing the disease. Friends shift uncomfortably, turn squeamish, when the conversation turns to the most personal aspects of treatment, like sex, impotence and incontinence. And even men who have prostate cancer themselves, taking their cues from their doctors, I suspect, find it difficult to talk about. Instead, they sound as if they’re spokesmen for their cancer, not men stricken with a serious disease.
In these posts I hope to provide an antidote to the averted eyes and the retreat into medical jargon that sometimes characterize talk about prostate cancer. Prostate cancer isn’t just about surgery, treatment and survival — it’s also about relationships, sex, self-esteem, embarrassment, hope and fear. By writing about my own experiences, I hope I can start a personal, honest and down-to-earth conversation about the disease — in all its bewildering sadness and, yes, in all its strange humor — with fellow prostate cancer patients, their caregivers and anyone else who is interested.
And I’ll say this one more time: There is no such thing as a “good cancer.”
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