Welcome Shihtzudaddy, (There going to love that name)
Well have you caught your breath yet? We all know how fast and furious the first few weeks are. They have to be. The sooner you get the bad stuff out, the sooner you can move on to the rest of your new life. Don't be afraid of what is coming next, you will learn to take one day at a time. We will do are best to make sure you are not left alone on this journey.
I am on a three month schedule for cystoscopy to keep an eye on things. I have low grade non-invasive cancer that was removed bu a TURBT. As long as the cancer doesn't come back I will not have to do anything else.
If it does come back, that will mean another TURBT, followed up with BGC or Mitomycin. That will all have to be determined at that time. It all depends on how aggressive and what the cancer looks like. This is usually followed up by maintenance BGC treatments.
If it gets more aggressive, or isn't controlled by the treatments, then we start to look at taking the bladder out (radical cystectomy or RC). This sounds scary and it is a little, but not nearly as scary as not doing it. Many here have had an RC and are doing just fine, and living full productive lifes.
But lets not get ahead of our selves. Lets wait and see what pathology has to say. They are the biggest step in identifying what type and how aggressive it is.They will stage and grade it, when you get that information let us know if you are still confused we will help you understand it better.
The internet has some good and some bad info on it. There is old information that shouldn't be used any more also, so care-full for that.Here is a good site to start with.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0032729/
You will have many questions and that's alright we will try to help as much as we can.
Hang in there.
Mark