I spent the morning reading through each prayer note and email that I have received the past two weeks. I was overwhelmed with gratitude.
Here are some highlights of my surgery:
- The surgery itself went very well. No complications. Dr. Patel said that my surgery was his most difficult case of that day. (A guy likes to be first in something)
- He was able to completely remove the prostate and save all of my nerve bundles. He was the only surgeon who told me he felt confident that he could accomplish this.
- I had some infection from one of the incisions, but it was quickly cleared with antibiotics.
- The tumor involved 25% of the prostate.
- He removed two lymph nodes for pathology as a precaution because of the size of my tumor. Both were clear of any cancer.
- There are five patterns of prostate cancer. My biopsy showed that I had patterns three and four. The pathology report of my prostate showed that I actually had pattern five as well. Pattern five is the nasty cancer. It is the most aggressive and deadly form of prostate cancer.
- A major God praise is that if I had chosen radiation as my first treatment, radiation cannot kill pattern five cancer when it is in the prostate. Therefore I would have still had cancer growing in my body. When you have radiation as your first form of treatment it is nearly impossible to surgically remove the prostate.
- Clean margins are what you want to have in the pathology. That means all of the cancer is contained within the prostate. There was one area that the pathologist could not say for certain that I had clean margins. Cancer cells were on the edge but he was not sure if any had escaped the gland. This will be my faith journey… trusting that there is no cancer left.
- My surgeon does not want to do any other treatments at this point. I will have PSA testing done every six weeks for awhile, then every three months. When the prostate is removed, the PSA testing is more reliable. This will determine if any cancer was left behind and is growing.
- If that does occur, then I would most likely have radiation treatment. The good news is that pattern five cancer can be destroyed by radiation if it is not within the prostate gland.
For right now I have another five weeks to full recovery from the surgery. I can return to work at the end of next week and then return to full activities in five weeks. God has directed every step in our journey. Dr. Patel is literally the best in the world in the robotic prostate surgery. I am thankful that God opened that door.
My focus is now fully on being the pastor of Gateway. Many people of prayer at Gateway have been saying the same thing… “God is doing something at Gateway.” I believe this is true. He is going to do many things that will amaze us. So get ready!!!
Thank you for loving Mary and me with your prayers, notes, words of encouragement.
