I went for my originally scheduled six-month PSA test last Thursday and was able to look online last night to see the disconcerting results: A substantial increase to 0.21 ng/ml.

Breaking the 0.2 ng/ml threshold now officially puts me into the biochemical recurrence category, at least according to the long-held definition of biochemical recurrence.

Needless to say, I felt gut-punched on seeing the results. Sure, I’ve know for over five years that my trend has been upward, but I guess I got comfortable with it bouncing around the 0.10 to 0.16 range for the last few years. I wasn’t expecting such a substantial leap between my “surprise” PSA test in February and this one in June.

When it comes to PSA doubling time, it dropped from 67.7 months to 52.8 months with this latest test result included in the calculations. If I look at only the five most recent test results, the PSA doubling time drops to 46.5 months. Of course, all of those are great numbers that a lot of guys would like to have.

My appointment with the doctor isn’t until 6 July, and it will be an interesting conversation now that we’ve crossed that magical line of 0.2 ng/ml. In a way, I’m glad I’ve got several weeks to think this through and to come up with good questions to ask so that I’m prepared for the appointment.

Of course, salvage radiation therapy just moved to the top of the list of things to talk about. It will be interesting to see if their recommendation changes given the 0.21 number versus the long PSA doubling time.

Needless to say, there’s going to be much reflection and research in the weeks ahead.