Does anyone have any advise on prostate cancer?

My father-in-law was just diagnosed with prostate cancer for the second time and he is in his 50's I think. I was wondering if anyone has faced the same thing and what we should expect. My father-in-law will not talk much about it so any thing you can tell me would be apricated.

Does anyone have any advise on prostate cancer?
What has likely happened is your father-in-law has just been informed that his PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) level is rising again after surgery. PSA is a hormone that is detected in the blood and higher levels of PSA can indicate the presence of prostate cancer or the recurrence of cancer.


What needs to be determined is whether there is a local recurrence of the prostate cancer (return of the cancer to the area where it was first identified) or distant disease (metastic disease). If it is a locally recurrent cancer Radiation therapy can be of help. If the cancer has spread then Androgen Deprivation Therapy (ADT) and Radiation or Chemotherapy can be of help. This is not good news for your father-in-law or for your family at this time, but there is hope. I have prostate cancer and have recently undergone surgery to remove the tumor. I found the best way to deal with the disease was to be as informed about treatment options as possible; and to choose a treatment that made sense to me. I recommend the following Cancer Survivors website for you and especially for your father-in-law, it is full of information about treatment options and stories from cancer survivors who have been through what your father-in-law is facing and can offer advice based on experience. The link is as follows: http://www.yananow.net/





Good luck to you and your family at this time. Be informed about prostate cancer and the treatments available and the chances for long term survival and a cure are much more likely.
Reply:I knew someone with it. Tell him to stay positive and don't worry. Give his troubles to God and stay healthy and eat good, healthy food. Prayer is the best medicine.
Reply:It is important to know what phase the cancer is in. If it is far progressed, he might need to get it surgically removed, which means that for the rest of his life he would have trouble with urination and his sex life. If its not too progressed, of course it can be treated, but realize that any sort of treatment of cancer is a large ordeal. I understand why he would not want to bring it up much. I'm not a specialist, but there are many promising new treatments involving bracytherapy, chemotherapy, and radiation, so keep your chin up. Good luck
Reply:First of all, I am very sorry about your father-in-laws diagnosis. While I am certainly not an expert on the subject, two people that are close to me went through the same type of Cancer. They both had different treatments and different outcomes so I will tell you what I know about both.





My father-in-law had Prostate Cancer about 8 yrs ago. He underwent the surgery that removed the tumor only, recovered gracefully with only minor bouts of incontinence for the first few months after the surgery and now can function sexually and not have to worry about urine leakage. My Godfather had the Cancer 2 years ago, and chose to have the entire prostate gland removed so there would be very little chance that the disease would come back. He suffered incontinence for the better part of 8 months, had weakness in both of his legs for quite some time, and to this date has not regained sexual function. Chances are your father in law doesn't wish to discuss his illness because it is in such a private location and because he is scared and is trying to face making a very tough decision. Being supportive is the very best thing you can do right now, but if he doesn't want to discuss it try not to press. Eventually he will have to inform you on his plans going forward, because he will need help with recovery. I hope this helped. Does he have a wife, or someone else that goes to the doctor appointments with him? Learning all that he can about the disease, and it's treatment options can be very difficult when his head is swimming after being diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease. Perhaps having someone at the appointments with him will help sort out the options and aid him in making a more educated decision. It's not an easy choice or an easy road, and my thoughts are with you.
Reply:Suggest you get him on the webmd site and into the support group they. He'll get answers to a lot of personal questions from people that have been there and medical professionals if desired.(there's quite a few alternatives that he has dependent on his particular status)





Been there, done that, before AND after my surgery.
Reply:If your Father-in-law has had surgery for it before, he can have radiation to follow up to zap the remaining cells. I had radiation only, and it wiped out all traces of cancer, and everything works great, my PSA is at zero for 3 years now, so it does work.





Good Luck!

lilycare