a little confused,shocked and scared

Stacey,

My suggestion to you is to talk it over thoroughly with your doctor to see if he has an objection to your own preference of anesthesia.

My personal preference has always been an epidural.  It makes a big difference for my recovery time, so I ask for it always and then try to stand my ground (unless I get vetoed by the Doctor).  

Good luck tomorrow.

Best regards,
Rosemary

thanks for all who replied and I really apreciate it. this is a nice place to share feelings. night before my surgery I feel all jittery,all nervous . does a person get to pick the kind of anestesia they want?

your all really a great support to me.

Stacey

->he said to me this is treatable and is one of those things us dr's call a nuisance type of cancer <-

Stacey, I know you are shocked and a bit traumatized by this unexpected find. My heart goes out to you. Let me reasure you though, doctors are 95% accurate in their site diagnosis during a cystscope as confirmed later by a pathology report from the biopsy at TURB. If he spoke the words "nuisance type" he most probably saw a low grade papillary growth. When I moved to Virginia from Texas, a tumor was seen during my last cystoscopy in Texas. A picture of the tumor was taken during the cystscopy in Texas and given to me. When I showed it to my new urologist in Virginia, he explained to me what inidcated it to be be a very low grade just by seeing the picture itself prior to his cystscopsy. It was confirmed as such once I had the tumor removed. My sister-in-law had a growth in her bladder. Pathology showed it to be benign - not cancer. Stay hopeful that the find is minor.

I'm sorry to meet yet another young mother with a bladder cancer diagnosis. Please don't despair.

There are many types of bladder tumors ranging from non-threatening to life-threatening. Nothing can be determined without a biopsy and TUR (transurethral resection), and pathology. Then you'll know what you're dealing with. Until then, don't read everything about bladder cancer. It's confusing and scary even when you know the territory and have a definite diagnosis. Before that time all you have to do is stay sane till the results come back, and then you know what to look for. There are quite a few ways to deal with bladder cancer. My sister had no other treatment aside from tumor removal.

What you want to hear is that it's stage Ta, grade 1, like my sister had.

Take care of yourself,
Wendy

Hi Stacey,

I think Skypilot has pretty much covered it all.  One thing that my Doctor warned me about after my initial diagnosis and before the stage and grading was, "Be careful about what you read on the internet.
You'll see a lot of worse case scenarios."  I think that your Doctor was being very reassuring with you. I think you should listen to him.

There is a page on the Bladder Cafe Home Page called "Questions" and you might find this helpful in talking with your doctor and preparing for your biopsy.

This is really the hardest time, after diagnosis and before the stage and grade .

The fact that you don't smoke is good.  Don't start now....

Good luck on Monday and please let us know how it turns out.

Best regards,
Rosemary

Try to relax the odds are it isnt that bad, It would be very rare that it is life threatnimg, For sure life changing. And it does suck but we all go on. Even if it were the very worst case you would a lot of years left to help your kids get older . Don