OK, here it goes . . . the pathology report.

Did I set this up right?

I got the phone call late Friday morning from Dr. Bertrand Guillonneau, my surgeon at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and he explained the results of the pathology report.

First off, the final Gleason scaling of my cancer is an 8 (grade 4).  This places my cancer in an aggressive category (8-10). At this grade level, the possibility of metastases is common.


The next part of the pathology report is the status of the surrounding lymph nodes that were removed during surgery. At the time of surgery, 20 lymph nodes in the area of my prostate were removed in order to get as much of the possibly affected tissue is removed.


The pathology report stated that 19 of the 20 nodes appeared to be "clear of cancer/metastasis", but that one lymph node showed signs of significant metastasis.  As I am to understand, this node was located very near where the prostate capsule breach had taken place and the high level of metastasis is probably due to this fact.


Dr. Guillonneau believes that even though there is some metastasis, that is has been limited only to what has been found at this point and that this report is very promising and that he is very confident in these results.


The next step will be the blood PSA results in another couple of weeks. If the PSA level has dropped from my pre-surgical level of 62.7 to a "non-detectible" level of 0.05 or better, then I will be facing a round of radiation therapy that would begin sometime In January and will take place over a period of weeks/months. If the PSA level is elevated at all, indicating metastatic disease, then I will go through testosterone-reducing therapy in addition to the radiation therapy.


So for now . . . once again, this is good news that there is little metastasis and that there seems to be little indication of any severe spread of the cancer even though I have an aggressive grade of cancer.   As a matter of fact, I'm taking this (cautiously) as very good news, and count myself as very fortunate and blessed.


Tuesday I should finally get my catheter removed - YEAH!  I will be headed (with Janet) into Sloan- Kettering to be tested to be sure that my sutures are no longer leaking and then have the catheter removed.  After all, it's only been 3 weeks with this thing (it was only supposed to be a week).


Thanks so much again for all your prayers, support and concern. My surgery was only the beginning of what I know is going to be a long road to recovery, and I feel blessed to have so many wonderful friends behind my family and I in support.  We'll update you again soon.