Surgery Dec 11th - post-op pathology report

[Guest guest]

Hi to all.

Let me give you an update on know things are going otherwise. I

thought you may want to know how I am feeling. During my stay in the

hospital (surgery 12:30 PM Tuesday, left noon Thursday), I walked a

total of approximately 4.5 miles (slow walks starting with less

than .5 miles, and progressing to 1 mile walks). After leaving the

hospital I walk on my treadmill for at least a mile three times

during the day. I have increased the walks to 1.5 miles. I am still

going slowly (on average, about 2 miles/hr).

My next appointment is on Tuesday, Dec 18th. My expectation, from

talking to my surgeon, is that they will be removing both the

catheter and the incision staples at that time. He said that during

surgery he feels that the bladder / urethra attachment went very

well, and that he believes that the results will be very good, and

there will not be any issue removing the catheter seven days after

the surgery.

You may have seen my other post where I discussed the nerve saving

aspects of my surgery. When my surgeon went in to cut out the

prostate, he said that on the right side, everything went very good.

The tissue surrounding the prostate looked clear, and the right side

nerve bundle separated from the prostate without any problems. He

said that it was a " textbook " separation. Unfortunately, when he

went to cut out the left side of the prostate, there was a lot more

suspicious tissue then originally anticipated, especially since the

biopsies only showed cancer in the right mid section of the

prostate. The biopsy did show a high level of atypical

(precancerous) cells on the left apex section of the prostate, but no

cancer cells were found. Anyway, during the surgery, because of the

suspicious tissue the surgeon found on the left side of the prostate,

he had to take a deeper cut to be sure that he got all the cancer.

What this means is that there was some nerve damage on the left

side. He did leave as much of the left nerve that he felt

comfortable with. He said that he had to cut some of the ancillary

(not sure of the correct term to use) nerve tissue that branches out

into the prostate tissue.

In regard to my post-op pathology report, my surgeon called Saturday

morning and said that he received the pathology report back. As

mentioned before, the pre-op pathology report from the biopsies

showed that the cancer was only confirmed on the right mid section of

the prostate, and some atypical cells on the left apex section of the

prostate. The Gleason's Score was 3+3=6, and Stage of T1C. The post-

op pathology report showed that there was cancer on both the left and

right sides of the prostate. The Gleason's Score has remained the

same as 3+3=6, but the stage is now T2C. Regardless of the increased

presence of the cancer on the left side of the prostate, the good

news is that the post-op pathology report confirmed that the prostate

cancer was a low grade of cancer. The best news is that all the

marginal tissues were negative for cancer, meaning that it is very

likely that the cancer was totally encapsulated within the prostate

itself.

Obviously, we will need to wait for the 30 day PSA test to get a

better indication, but currently everything looks good, and we expect

an undetectable PSA at that time.

As always, best regards, and only positive thoughts,

Ted G.