Medical Responses Part Two

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My new medical team includes a young man who is my "Navigator" which is a nice term meaning he is my point man. I finally sent him the message from my previous post 

"Now the doctors have both the CT and the bone scan. We have no idea what it means. So on a scale on 1 to 10 (again) with one being "meh, I've seen worse" to 5 with "it's all treatable" to 10 with "better finish reading that book" what are we looking at?"

Tyler sent me a great response:

Good morning Vince,

I’m glad Dr. P was able to respond so quickly regarding your other questions. Unfortunately, it would be hard to place you accurately on the “bell curve of survival” at this point. Though we have the data from the CT, Bone Scan, and PSA, your procedure with Dr. P will give us the final piece of the puzzle. When the pathology department examines the tissue they won’t just be looking to confirm prostate cancer, they will also be looking for how aggressive the cancer is. Prostate cancer is graded on a 1-5 (based on a 6-10 gleason score) scale that correlates how aggressive the cancer is. That being said, the imaging shows the cancer is out of the prostate- CT shows enlarged lymph nodes and Bone Scan shows areas of disease in your skeleton- so those put you in a higher risk category. I would not put you at a 10- you are fairly young and even if you did nothing the cancer wouldn’t kill you within a few weeks (so if you read at an average high school level, you’ll have time to start and finish that book). I have definitely seen worse with prostate cancer having spread to other organs, all through the skeleton, and a PSA upwards of 1000. Even if your prostate cancer shows aggressive features, this is treatable. I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving you a percentage or a time frame for long term survival, that is something Dr. Campbell would be able to discuss with you in more detail when he meets with you after your procedure.

I’m sorry I can’t give you a more solid answer, but the tissue pathology is still the final piece and giving a realistic prognosis is a bit out of my scope. If you had to pin me down the best I could say is that on the scale you presented I would put you above a 5 but below a 10. This is treatable, but I would not be able to give you an accurate assessment of your long term survival and control of the cancer.


I like the highlighted part. It shows the guy has a sense of humor. At some point I might have to tell him I'm trying to finish writing my books ... a much harder endeavor.

More to come, if you still want to join me.

Thanks for reading. 

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