Between September 06 and September ‘07 my PSA count rose from below 1 to 2.8.
My primary care physician. William Lester MD gave me a very full, informative and helpful talk about the prostate and prostate cancer. He recommended that i return for another PSA test in six months.
In April ‘08 the count was well above 4. Dr Lester set me up with an appointment with a urologist.
I met with the urologist, Dr Niall Heney (follow the link and you’ll see him – second from the left in the photo gallery), in early May ‘08. We connected immediately – in spite of – or because of – him being Irish and me being English. Not only that, but we discovered that he had practiced in England for a time at a hospital where I had my tonsils removed as a child and another where my mother had been treated for breast cancer way back when. Another comforting connection was that my childhood doctor in England was also Irish with the same light brogue. Dr Heney prescribed another PSA test.
The result was not so good! In a month the reading had moved to 5.3. “You’d better come in for a biopsy” he said.
All this was happening at a time when I was under a tremendous amount of stress in my professional life. In an effort to maximize income while my daughter attends school in New York I had unwisely taken on more projects than could be comfortably handled by a completely sane person. I was constantly busy and exhausted. It seemed that I had little time, energy or focus to contemplate what was showing up in my body. That all changed as the workload lessened and the biopsy appointment approached.
(to be continued)
