The warranty must have expired!

I need to go back and look at my user manual - I must have come with a 50 year warranty. Now that it has expired, little (and not so little) things are going wrong. As I was having my biennial physical exam, my doctor apologized for keeping his finger in my nether throat for so long. He wasn't sure, but something felt a little odd on my prostate and he recommended I see a urologist. The urologist was impressed that my regular doctor had noticed anything, because it was very subtle. However, he agreed that there seemed to be some hardening down there, and had a biopsy done. That showed that in fact I have a small area of prostate cancer.

As you can imagine, that was not welcome news. It is not life threatening and is very treatable. However, my options both have unpleasant possible outcomes. Surgery to remove the prostate will completely take care of the cancer. It will be gone, with no danger of it spreading. However, there is a 50-70% chance of impotence afterwards (not to mention a 3-10% chance of incontinence!)

Radiation therapy is pretty good these days, and the data show that it is just as effective 15 years out. Unfortunately, they don't have data beyond that. The doctor indicated that if it were he, he would opt for the surgery. Then he added "I think..." The problem with doing the radiation is that if ends up not being effective, surgery is no longer an option, and the only treatment would be hormone therapy which would basically eliminate libido.

Damned if you do and damned if you don't!

I have not decided what to do yet, but will talk to the radiation oncologist before choosing which option to take.

Needless to say, I have had better days.