I was just 47 when my symptoms started. I was having to urinate so often, but my bladder never felt totally empty. When I urinated, my stream would be weak. With a full bladder and weak stream, I was having some pain from the pressure.
Even though men don’t usually get urinary tract infections (UTIs), I figured that’s what it might be. After all, I didn’t really drink enough water, which is a risk factor for UTIs. I drank some more fluids, but my symptoms persisted. I figured it was time to go to my primary care provider to get checked.
I told the doctor about my symptoms, and he did a urinalysis. My doctor said I had a UTI and gave me antibiotics to treat the infection.
I would go through a couple more rounds of misdiagnoses and antibiotics before I was ultimately diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer.
Between January and March 2017, my symptoms continued. The antibiotics did not work to clear my supposed UTI. In March, I went back to my doctor. He didn’t do any further testing. He just gave me a stronger antibiotic in hopes it would get rid of my “UTI.”
I was frustrated to have to deal with these symptoms for so long. But I trusted the doctor knew best, that another round of different antibiotics would do the trick. Trying different antibiotics wasn’t out of the ordinary for me; switching antibiotics or upping the strength until doctors found a medication that worked is something I had to do in the past when I had MRSA and tooth infections.
Unfortunately, that stronger antibiotic didn’t work and my symptoms got worse.
In June, my symptoms were so bad that I went back to the doctor. He told me I had prostatitis, which is inflammation or infection of the prostate. This is typically diagnosed in combination with a physical exam. He didn’t do that for me. He simply told me that I had an infection. And what was the solution to this? More antibiotics, of course.
I started a different antibiotic. People usually stay on it for two weeks, but he told me to take the medication for three weeks and that he might even leave me on it for 30 days just so “we can knock it out.”
It was not knocked out.
Everything got worse in August. I was driving home from a meeting when I had the most intense pain in my hips and femurs. The pain was so bad that I wanted to cry.
I drove to urgent care, but nobody came to the desk for 10 minutes. I called my doctor and told him what was happening. He had an opening, so I drove to his office.
When I got to his office for my appointment, he did a physical exam on my prostate and immediately found it to be irregularly shaped. He set me up for a biopsy.
In addition to a biopsy of my prostate, I had a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test done—a blood test that can help detect prostate cancer. Together, the biopsy and PSA test showed I had prostate cancer.
To confirm the diagnosis, they sent me for a bone scan, an upper computerized tomography (CT) scan, and a lower CT scan.
A urologist gave me my imaging results. “I’m very sorry to tell you this, but you have stage 4 cancer,” he told me in the office as I sat with my husband. Honestly, I didn’t even know what that meant. Even though my mother had cancer and I had thyroid cancer 30 years earlier, I wasn’t familiar with cancer staging.
Turns out that stage 4 meant the cancer had spread to other parts of my body. The cancer was all over, basically everywhere except my organs. The cancer was found:
- In my spine
- In my rib cage
- At the back of my skull
- Throughout my lymphatic system
- On the backside of my bladder
- Inside my femur bones
- Inside my hip bones
The urologist also said my Gleason score—which measures how aggressive prostate cancer is—was a 9 out of 10. Very aggressive. Terminal.
Numb. That’s what I felt when I got the news.
The urologist said he had an oncologist on their way to his office to meet with me. The oncologist explained everything to me; although in the state I was in, I only retained about half of the information. My husband might have retained another 25%.
Since my husband and I had arrived at the appointment in separate cars, I drove myself home. I shouldn’t have because I don’t remember driving home. I actually don’t remember the next two days. I don’t know who I talked to or what I did. I was just numb.
As the numbness wore off, the anger kicked in. I was angry that I had cancer. I was angry it was going to take me out. I was angry that all of the things I had envisioned happening in my future weren’t going to happen. I was angry that this was happening to me at 47, not later in life. I was angry that my primary care provider had me go eight months with symptoms before even physically examining my prostate.
While I remained angry, I eventually embraced what I was about to face. I dove into researching everything about my disease. For hundreds of hours, I learned all I could about my disease.
Because I was told it would only give me a few extra months, I refused chemotherapy. Instead, I did androgen deprivation therapy, which is where they block your testosterone production. That brought down my PSA levels. I also entered a clinical trial for a combination of drugs that turned out to be very successful for me. I’m currently still using the same medication.
I recently had scans, and they showed that my cancer is mostly stable. While there are some areas of concern, like a couple of lymph nodes, most other tumors in my body are pretty much dormant right now.
Looking back on my journey, one thing that helped me tremendously and that I would suggest someone else in a similar situation do is find a therapist… immediately. Find a therapist who specializes in cancer diagnosis. That’s what I did, and I still see her every week. She helped me work through the anger that I had. Now, I spend my days advocating for cancer awareness. One of the most prevalent emotions for people with cancer is feeling alone, and I don’t ever want anybody to feel alone.
