Join The Club

I recently joined a new club. It isn't all that exclusive, in fact membership is in the millions worldwide. It isn't even a club that one seeks to join, but rather would avoid. Even so, membership isn't free, in fact is is rather costly. Sometimes it costs your life. Obviously I didn't join voluntarily, rather I was inducted.

If you haven't guessed by now, the club is called The Cancer Club. So you now see why it is not a coveted nor sought after membership. I belong to the Prostate Cancer Chapter. I didn't want to join, and now my main membership goal is to get the certification as "Survivor". I have been reading some statistics which may be of interest:

• About 11.7 Million Americans currently have or have had cancer (does not include skin cancer and other basil or squamous cell types)
• About 1.5 million cases were reported in 2011, not including the above exclusions
• Approximately 572,000 people died of cancer in 2011, 0r about 1500 per day, accounting for about 1 of every 4 deaths in the US, and exceed only by heart disease.
• Death rates for common types of cancer in the us in 2003-7 per 100,000 were: All types-380.8; Lung/bronchus-101.4; Colon/rectal-36.1; Prostate-24.7; Breast-24; Pancreas-21.7; Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma-14.2; Leukemia-10; Liver-9; stomach-5.
• Survival rate for all types was up from 50% from 1975-77 to 68% from 1999-2006
• The National Institutes of Health estimates overall costs of cancer in 2010 at $263.8 billion
• 2011 US estimates for prostate cancer, 240,540 new cases, 33,720 deaths
• Prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in men and the second leading cause of cancer death
• Relative survival rates for treated Prostate Cancer: 5 year 99.6%; 10 year 95%; 15 year 82%.

So you see from these statistics that it is a large, expensive club. My chapter has good survival rates but because there are so many cases there is still a fairly high death rate. You also see I have a pretty good chance of surviving for at least 15 more years and by then other risk factors will probably be at least as significant.

My cancer was detected pretty early. I have been having yearly PSA blood screenings done for the past 10+ years, which showed only a gradual yearly increase until this past year where it spiked 1.4 points. Anything over an annual spike of 1.0 is a danger sign. Combined with other risk factors (family history) and symptoms the urologist recommended a biopsy. The biopsy performed in December revealed a malignancy in 6 out of 11 samples taken, with a Gleason score of 6/7. The Gleason score ranges from 2 to 10, 2 being non-aggressive and 10 being very aggressive.

Because of my Dad's experience with prostate surgery, I rejected that option outright and after further consultation decided on brachytherepy, which is a high dose radiation treatment delivered via radioactive wire inserted in needles directly to the prostate. My next blog will describe my treatments, which may be rather graphic and not suitable for women and children so beware!