On May 10, I made a comment in my post about prostate cancer, about my dad's decision to not have testing done to find out if he has prostate cancer. It is hard for me to write about his decision, because I work in the health care field and I believe in modern medicine. I also believe, though, in the right of patients to make their own decisions, even if it is not a popular decision.My father is 73. He has worked hard his whole life and has survived and overcome many difficulties. He has always been a fighter, and he has won many "battles." I just assumed that this would be another battle that he would meet head on. His decision to not even have further testing shocked me. He has his reasons, though. He feels that he has lived a full and satisfying life. He says that he does not want to go through a bunch of tests and possibly invasive procedures that might tell him something he already knows: He will die one day. He feels no symptoms and has decided that he will use measures against pain, should it come to that.
There are a lot of arguments here. A lot of things that could be said about quality of life and about survival rates. But he has made his decision. I found out that it is much easier for me to be supportive of someone when they make a decision that you yourself would have made. It is very hard to be supportive of a controversial decision. That is my job, though. My job as a nurse and as a daughter.
1. While prostate cancern is quite different from breast cancer in its outcomes and natural history, I can't help coming down on the side of early testing. My husband at age 62 had prostate cancer which was picked during a manual test, had a laproscopic prostectomy and two years later has non-existent PSA scores with his other systems functioning well.
Then last year I had a routine mammogram turn up some suspect cells, followed by a biopsy, diagnosis of DCIS and a very non-eventful excision and radiationi treatment. As it happens just this morning I wrote about the experience on my own blog http://marysoderstrom.blogspot.com as part of my on-going campaign to get women over 50 to get regular mammograms.
Good luck to you.
Mary Soderstrom
Posted at 12:17PM on Jun 19th 2007 by Mary Soderstrom