THERE WAS NO RESPONSE TO AN UPDATE REMINDER IN 2014 SO THERE IS NO UPDATE.
My name is DeWayne Charleston and I am from Prairie View, Texas. In September of 2009 at 46 years of age and no symptoms I was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer stage T3. I chose hormone therapy with an eye towards surgery. However, my urologist told me that surgery was not an option at least not at the time.
I have been on Yananow (sounds like my own drug) for just about seven months and it has been a true support for me. While surfing Yana my PSA counts went something like this 86, 68, 27, 13, 7, 5, 6, and now 5. Seems like its near nadir. Of course Lupron was the actual drug - Insurance won't take Yana (lol).
My Oncologist has said that I "could" be referred to surgery if I continue to show improvement. I have lymph node involvement with two suspicious nodes that have reduced by half since treatment started in October of 2009.
My testosterone hovers around 50 and I am always tired, wake up every morning at about 4am and am wide awake.
I pray a lot, and I have a really good network of family and friends. My wife is more important to me than any physician, drug, or diet. Now having said that, she will probably grant me a cheat day on my restrictive diet (lol)!
I'd love any suggestions particularly about Da Vinci.
Its been over two years since I began this awful journey. However, its been made better by God and friends that keep me in their prayers. I did ADT for 15 moths and my PSA went from 86 to 5. I then opted for surgery with the idea that I could remove the greatest source of the cancer. I had surgery September 15, 2010 and six weeks later I had a PSA; that was .015. Three months after that it was on the rise at .065 and then .13 . In March 2011 I started radiation therapy and the PSA seemed to be stable at .15 but a couple of months later it had climbed to 1.0. Started back on ADT and it has gradually over the past 9 months gone back down to .020.
Waiting for my latest scores after being off ADT for one month. So given my initial diagnosis, and all that has happened, I thank God and my physicians for their care. I'm praying for a cure and thanking God for YANA!
Its been almost four years since I was diagnosed. I got divorced over a year ago. Too much stress, not enough counseling....get counseling! However, I'm doing great...and my ex and I are finally friends again. I'm doing intermittant hormone therapy. After having a prostectomy and nerve transplant, I was still impotent and the cancer had already spread. So I did radiation therapy and hormone therapy and my PSA has never gone above 1.0 in the two years since radiation treatment. However everytime I get off hormone therapy it tends to rise pretty quickly...using the ultra-sensitive PSA test.
I had a penile implant 18 months ago...but I'm divorced now so I can't really say how that is :-), but I think it works (lol)! I get regular exercise and try to eat healthy and.....considering all things....God is still awesome to me.
DeWayne's e-mail address is: dcharleston AT juno.com (replace "AT" with "@")
NOTE: DeWayne has not updated his story for more than 15 months, so you may not receive any response from him.
