Staci Cornelius and Baretta Lee discuss the importance of seeking second opinions, understanding all available treatment options, and choosing care from experienced specialists when navigating a prostate cancer diagnosis. They also emphasize the value of open communication, maintaining a positive outlook, and making treatment decisions based on long-term goals and quality of life.

Staci Cornelius:

The urologist there suggested radiation as a first line of treatment, but because of my husband's history with his mom having been diagnosed with multiple myeloma several decades earlier, he decided that we really needed to seek another opinion and go to a cancer center in Houston. So, we headed to MD Anderson where we met with both a genitourinary surgeon, and a radiation oncologist. The surgeon said that based on what the imaging had shown and the biopsy results, that he thought surgery was reasonable. He didn't advocate it really for it one way or the other. The UAB team had suggested that radiation therapy would be his first course of treatment.

So, while we were at MD Anderson, we also saw the radiation oncologist who was female and I just asked her point-blank, "If this were your husband, what would you do? The surgeon we have seen has told us that surgery is an option for him even though it is outside of the prostate." She said, "My husband is a surgeon, and he would say, I'm going to have radiation and I'm not going to let anybody operate on me, but I guarantee you I would make the decision and he would have surgery." And when she said that, I knew at that point that surgery was the road we were going to go down as the first course of treatment.

So, as you can imagine, in the beginning it was a whirlwind. I didn't expect him to be diagnosed with cancer, let alone stage four cancer that was outside the prostate gland, and so, information was coming at us fast and furious. We were getting a lot of different opinions and we were receiving information about the side effects, what the surgery could result in, including urinary incontinence and potentially bowel incontinence and erectile dysfunction, sexual dysfunction. I remember talking to one of the doctors at MD Anderson, and I can't remember whether it was a surgeon or the radiation oncologist, but they asked us, "What is your goal?

What is your objective from this treatment?" I said, "I want Henry to live. I want him to be at our dinner table every night. I want him to be helping our daughter with her homework. I want him to see her graduate from high school. I want him to see her graduate from college. I want him to walk her down the aisle. So, what might or might not happen in the bedroom in a year or two is really not the most important thing. The most important thing for me is that he is with us, and he's living life with us.

Initially, I had a bias for staying at home and getting all of his treatment there in Birmingham, so it would disrupt our life as little as possible and impact our 12-year-old daughter as little as possible. I wanted her life to be normal and to not really feel the stress of this diagnosis and the treatment that he was going to have to go to. But as soon as we saw the doctors at MD Anderson and even just walking around the facility, seeing that all they do day in, day out, every day is treat cancer patients. The surgeon that we talked to, all he does is operate for prostate cancer and mostly high risk aggressive prostate cancer like Henry's. And even the radiation oncologist, she treats prostate cancer. She doesn't cross over and do radiation for breast cancer patients. They have another group that does that.

So, seeing how specialized they were and the volume of patients that they see for his specific type of cancer day in, day out and that's all they did, I was absolutely convinced that that's where he was going to have his treatment. Fortunately, we have direct flights from Birmingham to Houston, and so, that made it easier than if we had gone anywhere else outside of Birmingham, but it was still disruptive. I thankfully have a mother who takes wonderful care of our daughter when we can't be there, and we knew it was going to be about a week away from home for the surgery.

The surgeon was able to get Henry on the schedule within about two weeks of our visit, and we knew from the staging at that point that moving with some urgency was important. So, we immediately got it scheduled on September 21st, and we got back home and told our daughter that's what we were going to do. She was sad about the fact that we were going to be leaving her for a week and we knew that logistically, it would be more complicated than being at UAB in our backyard.

Baretta Lee:

Immediately the doctor gave us a lot of information. I mean, she explained it to us and because we were diligent about knowing what our options were, what was the next step. So, we pushed so we could know what to do. She immediately gave us a couple of options. I guess it depended on... It was the robotic surgery was one of them, depending on the position of it or if it had spread or whatever the case may be. I think even at that time we were told that it didn't look like he would need any type of chemo or radiation after, and so, once my husband heard that, he was like, "Okay. I want the surgery." So, I was like, "Okay. It's operation one and done." We get the surgery, no chemo, no radiation, that's how we're going to look at it. So, those were our options. That was our path from the very beginning.

We were very honest with our feelings. We made sure that... We were raw honest about how we felt, and we never talked about it not working. I think that that's important. I think that your attitude and how you carry things out, it applies to a good outcome. So, we didn't talk about it a lot. We only talked about it when a doctor's appointment came up.