The journey on which you've embarked is not a solitary one it must be a cooperative effort between you and your health care team and your family. It is, after all, your life and you must take an active role in insuring that it turns out the way you want. You must have confidence in your doctor, but not give your life over to him/her.
More Important is to consider whether or not the treatment that may be proposed is appropriate for your lifestyle, aggressiveness of the disease, etc. We are seeing many new studies that have questioned the increased use of curative primary therapies (surgery, radiation) based on an elevated PSA level. Where is the reality in the rising PSA test level that mandates an agenda for action?
You should also seek out 2nd, and maybe 3rd, opinions from doctors in different specialties in order to get a balanced view of your clinical situation in order to make the decision that is most appropriate for cure as well as for your resulting quality of life. The doctor should also welcome your bringing family members or a friend with you to the consultation to help understand all that is going on and to help you get all of the information that you need.
In reality, depending on the staging of your tumor, you may have more than one option to evaluate in potentially achieving a cure. And, in many cases, we're seeing that the best "treatment" is not to treat, but maintain a program of active surveillance in conjunction with your doctor.
In addition, you want to have a physician that is very experienced in the technique that is being recommended. You want to find a doctor that has done the procedure in significant numbers and with a degree of frequency.
We have provided a Consultation
Form for you to bring with you to each session in order to get
all of the information you need and to be certain to ask all of
the questions for your own concerns.
One On One interview with Steve Adubato and guest Virgil Simons
Basic Information
Oncology Nursing
Society - provides excellent resources on advanced stage disease
treatment and the quality of care that should be expected.
American
Society of Clinical Oncology - their People Living With Cancer
site provides full discussion of the issues related to chemotherapy
and advanced stage disease therapies
Geriatric Oncology
Consortium - a nationwide group of professionals that are developing
standards of care for older patients
Caring Connections
- provided by the Partnership For Caring to help deal with end-of-life
issues, including pain management
