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I have been listening to WFAN sports talk radio for many years. On Saturday mornings there is a show called Ed Randall Talking Baseball. Ed is also an advocate for Prostate Cancer awareness and founded an organization called Fans for the Cure. I always heard Ed talking about the importance and simplicity of PSA tests. It’s just a blood test you take during your annual check up. I had never heard of it but it seemed simple enough so I started having them done.
Last September my PSA level was 7.0. The year before it was 3.0. 7 is a high number and it was a big increase over the year before. That said, it was suggested that I see a urologist. I made an appointment which was scheduled for December 20. The soonest I could get it. During the two months I waited I was comforted by the fact that exercise can artificially inflate the PSA number.
12/20 finally came and in the 5 minutes I was actually with the doctor he told me to get an ultra sound and MRI and then come back in 6 weeks. Still comforted by the exercise thing and the fact that “there’s no way I have cancer”…I went for my tests and the 6 weeks passed. The Sunday before my follow up with the urologist, as I was cooking breakfast, I got a notification on my phone that my results were in. I opened the app, read the entire thing, and only understood 4 words. “Very Highly Likely Cancer.” I woke Lori up to show her. Life just took a hard left.
Prostate tumors are given a PIRAD score. No clue what PIRAD is, but 1 is no big deal and 5 is very highly like cancer. Mine was a 5. The head spinning began. A few days later 1/31/22, Lori and I were back at the urologist to officially hear the news. Cancer. I was then set up with a telehealth appointment to discuss the next step…MRI Fusion Biopsy. They use the MRI images I just had and fuse them with ultrasound images to pinpoint the tumor and guide the biopsy needles to the exact spot. Then they take 12 more samples from different parts of the prostate. Without going into too much detail, they were getting ready to stick me with needles where needles should never be.
Unfortunately, this test is only done on the first Thursday of the month. That was in two days. It was too late to make that happen for February, so I was looking at another month before getting this biopsy. That did not sit well with me at all. I’ve already been dealing with this since my blood test in September, so another month now seemed like forever.
Trying to expedite this biopsy was difficult. This is a relatively new procedure and not many doctors perform it. I had just about resigned myself to having to wait. Enter Uncle Brian. He has a friend who is a very well respected doctor specializing in cancer research. He recommended Dr Ash Tewari, a world renowned Prostate Cancer surgeon at Mt Sinai. Dr Tewari was able to see me right away and scheduled the biopsy for 2/22/22 (at 2 pm actually).
The pathology results came back a few days later. They confirmed cancer, and showed that it was unfortunately more aggressive than originally thought. My doctor requested authorization from my insurance company to determine if the cancer had spread. The original request was denied. As of today, 3/13/22, we are waiting for a peer to peer review between my doctor and the doctors on the review board at the insurance company. The waiting continues…7 months and counting.
At some point this afternoon I remembered that today is exactly a year ago that I was admitted to the hospital after being told I needed triple bypass surgery. Thankfully a second opinion made it clear that I did not need surgery. Thankfully I've been fine since. That was such a crazy time.
It seems I neglected to write about my conversation with Dr Abida after my last blood test. Surprise surprise he confirmed the good news. Since then I have begun to notice some things slowly getting back to normal. Hopefully soon I will start feeling back to myself.
I will be going back to Sloan for the next blood test and another visit with Dr Abida on 5/13.
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