Mark,
There are a lot of things out there to help quit smoking now. I'm on the patches. Kind of lucky that here in Colorado I get 12 weeks of patches for free! Part of the tobacco settlement money that the states got. The other thing I think whenever I get the urge to smoke is "Damn things GAVE me cancer".
It's a little different than "Gee, someday I might get cancer if I smoke." We DID get cancer from the cigarettes and it's VERY likely to return if smoking continues.
Best of luck with quitting. It's hard, but worth it.
Of course, I'm only on week 3 (today) of being a former smoker, but it's a thought that has helped me push the temptation away.
1-800-quit-now is a U.S. wide support line for quitting and they have lots of good information.
Trying to get my son to quit now. He's only 25 but his wife is pregnant (she just quit also) and hasn't smoked as many years as I have.
I quit 2 days after getting the pathology result of CIS. No other tumor found so far, but there is something "suspicious" inside the bladder wall on the CT scan (11/15/06). They aren't sure if it's from the TUR (10/31/06) and radiology says it's too risky to do a needle biopsy. I suppose, if it is cancer they don't want to drag cancer cells through my abdomen to get it out.
So...I get to wait 4 more weeks for another CAT scan to see if anything is different. Not fun.
Had to delay my BCG because there was still blood in the urine after the TUR. Looks like I start that on 11/28/06.
Since the CIS was the only thing found (except for the unknown area in the CT scan) and it was only about 1 cm x 3 cm of CIS, I'm hoping the BCG fixes it and that we caught it early.
My symptoms (getting UTI's) started June 2005. Kept coming and going and since the antibiotics seemed to get rid of the pain and reduce the urgency, we all thought it was just UTI's. The urine tests showed blood in the urine for me and I did have pain so I finally got a referral to a urologist and he did a quick cysto in the office and found the mark. He found it the day before I took off on business for a 3 week trip out of the country. We did schedule the TUR for the day after I returned, so it's been pretty quick to get things done so far. Gald for that.
Best of luck from another newbie and another new Non-smoker.
Mike
47yr male.
smoked 33 yrs.
dx CIS 11/3/06
last cigarette 11/4/06 9:35PM.
