THERE WAS NO RESPONSE TO AN UPDATE REMINDER IN 2019 SO THERE IS NO UPDATE.

Went to my nurse practitioner on October 23, 2015 for medicine refills. Asked for my PSA to be run. It was like pulling teeth to get her to do that. The score was 4.3. She said there was nothing to worry about and I was still young.

Friday, November 13, 2015 packed the family and headed to Salado, RD and the Scottish Highland Games. On the way I tried to make a pit stop to go to the restroom. I didn't make it in time. I have never had an (New word for me) incontinence problem. I like a man wanted to ignore it, but when we got back home the wife pestered me into seeing a urologist; whom we saw on December 3rd. At that time he did a DRE in which he felt something, but nothing to worry about at this time. So he scheduled me for a biopsy. That was done on December 22nd. Doc said I should hear before Christmas. I didn't hear anything.

So, no news is good news, right? Finally I called the doctor's office January 6. They apologized and wanted me to come in the next day. My wife and I show up and go to an exam room. As this young female PA walks in the door, with the door still open, she declares very matter of fact I have cancer. We did not hear anything else she told us after that. We are then scheduled to meet the doctor the next day. He gives me a good book to read with all the options: "Promoting Wellness for Prostate Cancer Patients" by Mark A. Moyad, MD, MPH Then explains that if I choose radiation I cannot do surgery afterwards. So we schedule for a robotic laparoscopic radical prostatectomy for Monday, February 8 when he and his team have the most time and are rested.

I was so angry and mad that I was beside myself. Of course, my wife is dumbfounded and scared. Here I prided myself on taking care of myself. I even just the previous November tried to get my company to get involved with Prostate Cancer Awareness month and grow mustaches to raise money.

I don't have any family history of cancer much less prostate cancer.

Well eight months later and I'm cancer free and my PSA level is undetectable.

I want to make a correction to my first post. The Scottish Highland Games were in Salado, TX not Salado, RD. I made my first post from my iPhone. I was anxious to start on this site and was not near a computer.

I wanted to explain why my wife and I chose to go the route of Robotic Laproscopic Radical Prostatectomy. One of the biggest reasons we chose surgery over radiation/chemotherapy was as the urologist made clear that chemotherapy deforms even the normal cells in the entire area and they will not heal nor respond normally and therefore cannot have surgery done on that area after chemotherapy has affected that area. But chemotherapy can be done after surgery. Plus the urologist we used was in his early 40s, had already done three kidney surgeries on my wife, removed a cancerous kidney from my mother-in-law and seen other family members over the years. He did explain the "nerve sparing" measures and the pills and injections and pumps to aid in erection difficulties. That last sentence just completely went over our heads. So everything's going to be okay, right doc? The surgery date was set a month away, but I called about every 3rd or 4th day asking the surgeon: what about this option? And I was surprised, it was the doctor, not his nurse or PA that answered each time to answer my questions and calm my fears. In the end it was: Molon Labe! At or about 31° 58' 40.8"N, 102° 8' 10"W Lose Not a Minute!

Pathology results: This puts me at a stage T3a with a Gleason Score 3+4=7 Tumor involves 20% of Prostatectomy Specimen. (2) Right Lymph nodes are benigh, Left Lymph nodes are benign. No cancer in either of the Seminal Vesicles, or vas deferens, and no cancer invasion of the bladder neck. The cancer was totally contained within the prostate and had not escaped through the prostate wall.

I am nine months post-prostatectomy and cancer free. I was not able to achieve an erection on Viagra or Cialis. So on August 23rd in the urologist office I tried my first Caverject Impulse injection of 5 mg. Wow! I haven't seen a hard-on like that since my early twenties much less the last 7 months. That was at 9:02 in the morning. Doc said it should last 30 minutes to an hour. If it lasts more than one and a half hours to call him. He explained the damage that priapism could do to my penis after 3 or 4 hours. Well, I was so excited that on my way back to the office I did some Kegel exercises. Okay, maybe not Kegel. I just wanted to feel myself bounce up and down. Good thing I thought to grab a sport jacket to wear to work that day to conceal the boner I was enjoying. Well, by 10 o'clock I went to the men's room to try to make it go down by masturbating. That didn't work. And I was really starting to hurt. I waited until 10:25. Finally at 10:45 I called the doctor. He said to meet him at the Emergency Room. My Boss knew I had an other doctor's appointment at 11:00 so I just stopped by his door and nodded at him and left. I called my wife on the way. The E.R. was waiting for me. I was relieved to finally get my boxer-briefs off and slacks. I put on the hospital gown and waited 45 minutes for Dr. Dragun to come. The meds he needed to inject have a short shelf life, which he does not keep at his office. The PA's that wanted to watch were unmarried women. Ugh. I had to lay there with my boner straight up, my wife beside me, a needle with a tube attached sticking out the side, totally exposed with people walking in and out of the room. My flagpole finally started to very slowly subside an hour later. Any modesty I had, left that day. Well at least I was smiling and laughing at the experience. I was back at work by 2:00 that day and no one at the office was any the wiser.

Three weeks later the pharmacy was finally able to get everything I needed so I could mix smaller dosages of the Caverject. Went to the urologist office. He walked me through the steps. And by 8:54 a.m. I had my second injection. This time 1mg. No results. I tried 8 more attempts on my own, each time the same dose or adding a 1/2 mg, to take it slow. I didn't want to end up in the E.R. again. The last dose was at 2.5mg and I achieved an erection. Having read on this site about men losing length and girth, I decided to measure myself. I was so angry. I measured my length 2 and 3 ways. Yep, I had lost 1-1/2 inches in length! I haven't measured my girth, but my hand doesn't grip myself the same so I know I have lost girth. I just don't remember that measurement. I wonder if it I lost all of it since my prostatectomy. Well, now that I can use 2-1/2mg of Caverject, I can go back to using the Caverject Impulse.

But I must confess I wonder about my loss of length and girth of my manhood if it had started before my prostatectomy. My libido fell drastically the last ten years and I would only get horny for about 2 or 3 days a month. My poor wife. I tried talking to the doctors about it but they just ignored me or made it difficult to open up about. They said my testosterone was in the normal range for a 45 year old. Since then I have done my own study and that normal range was for an 85 year old. Doctors really need to get a clue.

Having learned on this site and another about "Use it or Lose It" I have bought a VED to use daily. (Well, almost daily.) That's hard to do when one of your grown daughters and grandson moved back to live at home. Maybe I can regain some of what I have lost. I hate / feel desperate having to use a vacuum pump, out-of-necessity each day of which God had designed my body to do for me 3 to 8 times a night on its own. I kind of bites into my Christian lifestyle thinking.

At the current time I am almost continent. I have total urge continent control, but I still wear a Depend shield for the "stress" incontinence. Which to me is weird. I will hold it, then run to the restroom, then come back to my office and as soon as I sit down a dribble will escape. That does not make any sense. I recently started concentrating on doing Kegel exercises to see if that really helps. I'll keep you informed.

Hang in there men, we will make it.

Steve M

April 2018 - My latest PSA was just a week ago for my two year checkup and I am remaining cancer free with a PSA at 0. I would not give an update in October of 2017 to either YANA site or UsToo.org site because of my deep dark and lonely depression. (http://www.ustoo.org/News-Page/y1xkQGnuWq7kyCdjC61okaxYYJ_7jU98m5R9anUdnw9KVAwfAtD7XOBrhXp89oK88KYIsr0uKCByzIoePrPwRw** ) But God is always faithful to bring me out of those episodes. (1 Corinthians 10:13-14) I still have some dark days, but none as dark as October. My doctor tried me on depression medicine for 6 weeks during February 2018 but they conflicted with my current medicine, so he took me off of it.

It has been two years since my surgery. These are the things I have noticed that have improved. Although a doctor will deny that there are "muscles" along one's urethra (pee tube), my nerve endings have healed and calmed downed so that my urine stream flows more forcefully and straight. My meatus (pee hole) is still messed up. With two years healing of the nerves, my meatus functions more like it used to before surgery until I am bearing down and squeezing out the last bit of urine. The after streams go sideways and also dribble to the underside of my penis, sometimes soaking my balls. Now-a-days I use toilet paper to clean up the bathroom area (the toilet rim and floor), which I never did before. The last six months or so I have been getting nocturnal erections, though not as hard as before.

As of January 2018 my company changed insurance companies, so I no longer have the privilege of getting my Caverject injections. I am left with just my VED for penial rehab.

One last thing, I use Depend guards to catch the occasional leak throughout the day. Of this I know I am very fortunate. I had an uncle in the Marines who just passed last away last year at age 91 that had a prostatectomy in 1971. He had to change his full Depends underwear 4-5 times a day. But in the last year I have a continuous blister on his ball sack from those incontinence guards rubbing me raw no matter how much powder I use. About the time it scabs over it breaks open again. It is relatively small but painful. I have used band-aides and Neosporin on my scrotum to protect the blister at times. Yes, I trim the hair just enough for the Band-Aid to stick; but even that is uncomfortable.

Another year and seven months have gone by since I last measured myself. I have lost another inch in length and ½ inch in girth. So total, I have lost 2-1/2 inches in length and am 4-3/4" long when erect in a vacuum tube. Flaccid, it's like wrestling a squid to go to the restroom. I cannot control where my stream is going to go or where my dick is pointing sometimes. There is so much loose skin and no firmness. You cannot say we, the prostate-less, are uncircumcised, though it may look partially that way, but intact men's skin isn't loose. As to orgasms, I have a remembrance of them, I think I do. It is just not the same without ejaculation.

I am very thankful that I haven't had to go through the chemical or radiation treatments at this time that many of the men on this site have gone through. I applaud their manly vigor and tenacity to handle those dark times.

Steve's e-mail address is: skmasters AT bcck-design.com (replace "AT" with "@")

NOTE: Steve has not updated his story for more than 15 months, so you may not receive any response from him.