I have the same cancer as Biden -- what you need to understand

[Trust_Reality]

21. Indeed, the screening recommendations are bad advice.

I don't know if they are "out of date," I'm not sure when they were declared.

The idea of stopping the screening after age 70 is based on the claim that "you will most likely die from something else before you die from prostate cancer because it is usually slow growing." That does not sound like medicine. It sounds like money, as in medical insurance expenses. (I assume there are data to support it.) That does not take into account that cancer any place in one's body presents a reduced level of overall health and well being. So, while waiting for something else to kill you, you are probably experiencing a reduced quality of life.

At age 79, I had to demand a limited biopsy from a prostate surgeon I was referred to. I finally told him my parents lived to be 93 and 97. There was a pretty good probability I might live quite a lot longer. (Statistics and probability are heavily involved in today's medical recommendations. Congratulations, you are a data point.)

I had had some urinary symptoms - blood in urine. A urology PA mentioned an MRI as one of the options. I jumped at that unobtrusive option, and it found the prostate cancer. It was well contained with moderate risk (biopsy found Gleason 3 + 4). The tumor location was one that could be felt via physical exam in the most common area for prostate cancer to occur. (Hurray, I fit the data.)

At this point the options were "active surveillance" with frequent biopsies, or surgery, or radiation. There are other options as well which I looked for on my own. The surgeon's PA recommended radiation - if I did not want to "wait and watch".

After much research, some of which had been done years before (I had a history of prostate symptoms), I chose proton beam radiation which required living in another state for 6 weeks and three or four preliminary visits. Half way through the treatments I began feeling better. After the final treatment, I had enough energy to immediately load up the minivan myself and take off. Preparing for the daily radiation treatments and coping with some intestinal irritation was a nuisance, but otherwise the whole process went well. That was 2.5 years ago. I'm doing very well and planning to play (fairly competitive) pickleball for many more years.