Enjoying life to the full after a cancer diagnosis
I WAS interested in the prostate cancer conundrum: should you opt for surgery and risk nasty side-effects or adopt a policy of wait and see (Good Health)? I was glad to hear that all of the interviewees are leading normal lives, whichever choice they made. Three years ago, we were devastated when my husband John was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer. After radiotherapy and chemotherapy, his prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels — which measure a protein in the blood bl d produced d db by the th prostate — are low. He has a three-monthly hormone injection, which is keeping things under control. My point is to tell other people that aggressive cancer does not have to be a death sentence.
SANDRA WOODWORTH, Thornton-Cleveleys, Lancs. I’VE lived through prostate cancer after having the big operation to remove a ‘moderately progressive’ tumour. That was 11 years ago. Being alive is all that matters, surely? The dreaded potential side-effects of incontinence and impotence should be the least of your considerations. I have annual PSA blood tests and the level remains low. It was, and still is, a great relief to me to know the cancer was contained in the removed prostate. Those who opt for wait-and-see are akin to expecting a bomb to go off, but not knowing when. I would not want to live with that kind of stress.
MAURICE BLIGH, Sittingbourne, Kent.