Questions for the doctor visit this week

In a discussion with family over the weekend I was asked a couple of interesting questions:

1. How will you know if the treatment has been successful when you get to the end?
2. And a corollary: What kind of follow-up is planned to monitor your status?
3. And then, a question I've been wondering about relative to the hormone therapy:  I stop taking the testosterone blocker (bicalutamide) in March (after 6 months on that), but the luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LH-RH) shots continue until late June. Why?
   

I have my own ideas about #3, based on the little research (and understanding) I have of the hormone interactions. But I want to see if I'm even close to being on target with those thoughts before writing about them. I hate to be wrong.  No, really.

As for the other two, I have an idea (hope?) that monitoring will be done by checking for any PSA count, which seems like the easiest way to tell if all the cancer is gone.  Because, if there is any PSA count 3 months after the last Trelstar injection it would indicate the presence of some prostate cancer somewhere... and hence the PSA count.  But I don't know for sure if that's the case.  And I guess I just rambled on about an answer to number 1 & 2... without knowing for sure.  So much for consistency!

So, I'll wind down on this post and go have a glass of wine (one) and think about how easy I have it in comparison to some others who are gracefully and lovingly dealing with issues so far beyond this one.