Starting my cancer journey

So...my story...

I've had to deal with BPH since my 30's. It wasn't particularly serious and didn't require meds back then, but it was a hassle. As I moved into my 40's and 50's and started noticing worsening symptoms, I started on what I think is probably the normal progresson of meds. The meds didn't make the symptoms go away, but they kinda served as a holding action.

The past decade, though... If I miss taking my Tamsulosin, everything goes to h***. I managed to go on vacation without it and it was all constant urge to go, but couldn't go. No fever, but an almost fever-like discomfort. Had to have my doc call it in to a local pharmacy. So...BPH was a thing for me.

But for years, DRE by the urologist didn't show excessive size of my prostate. Then it's a bit bigger, but it was a function of me getting older.

My family doctor called for a PSA test a few months ago. It went from ~2, to 2.41 the last time, to 5.05. So my urologist called for a TRUS and I agreed. He didn't notice lumps in my prostate from his DRE, but felt like the big jump in PSA would have wound up leading to a TRUS, especially if the MRI showed nothing.

TRUS was 12 core samples of my prostate. Two turned up cancerous.

One was Gleason score of 3+3=6, with cells found only in 5% of the sample. The other was 3+4=7, with cells found in 50%. That's the troublemaker. I'm Gleason group 2, but it's Intermediate Favorable.

The main options are consistent: Active Surveillance or one of the "curative" therapies, prostatectomy or radiation. But within Active Surveillance, they can do genomic testing on the TRUS samples they took to see if the cells they found fit a pattern that's more likely to grow or grow quickly.

At this point, I've chosen Active Surveillance, but am having the genomic testing done. In three weeks, those results should be back and I'll face a new decision.

I'm fortunate that, at this point, at least, my cancer seems not to have broken containment of my prostate, and that it was present in only 2 of 12 core samples. It leaves me with more options...even though it also means I'll have to re-decide, again and again, about staying with surveillance or jumping to more involve solution.

What I don't know is how bad the curative options are. I've done research and talked with my doctor. Prostatectomy doesn't sound like much fun. Radiation sounds like less, mainly because it can affect stuff that's not involved. In both cases, the full end state of my recovery could take a year or more to find.

My doctor tells me that, with therapy, I can retrain the nerves and damaged areas from both to arrive at a point where I'm not leaking all the time and have some residual function. What I would like to know from the folks here is how accurate that statement is.

I'm aware that everyone has their own experiences on this journey. There's a lot of room for variance. But I would appreciate any perspectives on how this worked out for them. Thanks!