The first follow up

Last Monday I went back to the hospital for my first follow up. As well as seeing the specialist nurse I was seen by Professor Neal who leads the team at Addenbrooke's. He had both bad and good news for me. The tissue that was removed during my operation was sent to the path lab for evaluation and revealed that my tumour was worse than expected. It is graded a T3b. This means that the tumour was on both sides of the prostate, and had broken through the capsule. It had invaded the bladder neck and seminal vesicles but, importantly, not the lymph nodes. It is from the lymph nodes that the cancer is most likely to spread around the body.
I had blood taken for a PSA check and will find out tomorrow what the level is now. If it has dropped to almost zero then all is well. If it hasn't it does not yet mean it is definately bad news as it might indicate that some remains in my bloodstream and is still on the way down. Another test will occur in 6 weeks and if still high that would be bad news.
I am being referred to the oncology department to be prepared for radiotherapy. If my PSA is low then this won't be done immediately but only if it starts to rise again. If it remains high it will be done soon.
Having done some quiet research on my situation it seems that T3b tumours are not the best result. Less than 50% of men will survive 5 years. Having radiotherapy improves those chances a little. However the good news is that my case the cancer does not seem to have reached the lymph nodes so I am planning to be in the survival group. So far I am not wrong!
The side effects are all still with me and progress is frustratingly slow. However my main concern is to know whether I will have to have radiotherapy now, later or hopefully never.
All of this means that my personal life remains up in the air. How can you make long term decisions with this hanging over us? We have a buyer for the business and have found a new house, but a long way away from the hospital treating me so might decide to put things on hold. The new house in Cebu has been finished for almost a year and stands empty and locked. We have yet to see it.
Thanks for reading and I will update again soon.