I'm fine, quit asking already
I have the lowest grade of prostate cancer. Math says:
There is a 2/3 chance it will never grow enough to impact my life at all
Without any treatment, 0.5% (5/1000) it kills me within 10 years
Without any treatment, ~2% (20/1000) it kills me within 15 years (probably lower than my risk of stroke?)
This diagnosis is not a surprise to me. My dad was diagnosed about 15 years ago, received radiation treatment and is fine now. I have been getting PSA screening since then which is what detected my cancer.
Doctors have several ways of grading prostate cancer now. Regardless of the method used, I have the lowest grade. A non-trivial chunk of doctors argue to not even call it cancer yet.
Even with only a 1/3 chance of the cancer ever progressing, all the doctors recommend treating it with either radiation or surgery as I can tolerate the side effects better at my "young" age. Docs say to get treatment within 3 years (although that was several months ago now). I will likely get treatment in 2025, but have not decided what to do. Shockingly, the surgeons say surgery is the only way to go and the radiation oncologists say surgery is for chumps.
This will be the last unsolicited update you get from me on this. The first 10 subscribers to my new blog get to touch my prostate for free! So read there/subscribe/rss or don't. I am as shocked as you that this valuable url was still available for me: www.prostateplay.com It is unlikely that there will be many updates this year.
What I need from you:
Nothing really
Beers
RSVP to events promptly and show up on time
If it ever goes to shit, send food instead of flowers
This is not a secret, no issues if you tell anyone else
For math nerds.... while looking for statistics on treatments, google initially took me to the MSK page with their raw linear algebra model. I was happy to have the nerd skills to use it, but was shocked at this terrible way to present the data to the common man. Of course, they do actually have a better page .
For internet nerds... Blog is currently on substack. But it seems quite spammy. If it is too terrible, let me know and I can move it.