Another newcomer

KaT,

I guess getting into the stirrup position is pretty uncomfortable when you have sciatica....  

Will you be having an epidural or general anesthesia?

Why do you see a rhematologist?  Do you have arthritis?  Or is it for sciatica?  I thought sciatica was a pinched nerve.....

The reason I ask is because I got a really NASTY case of Psoriatic Arthritis with BCG treatments for BC.  It kind of came on with the BC territory.

Your BC friend,
Rosemary

Absolutely. I have become a regular nuisance about this — I get copies of every blood test, x-ray, MRI, whatever. Who knows where these guys will be (or where I will be) when I need to refer to them.

Life gets complicated when you get sick, doesn’t it?

Eight years! Oy. I don’t feel like such a nut case, then.

I have the Mitomycin question on my list. As for the surgery, my back is a problem. Assume there will be no pain during the procedure, but getting into and out of position can make me miserable for days.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Forgot to mention, that it might be important to ask for a copy of your path report, too.

Best regards,
Rosemary

Hey KaT,

Your story is very familiar sounding to me. I went to Uro about 8 years before diagnosis and was told that the blood was not from the Bladder. But, then, I kept peeing blood. I eventually just ignored it and assumed it was vaginal. NOT!

Anyway, I had my TUR in January 2006. I seem to be okay more than a year later. I have not had recurrances, but know that it will probably happen someday.

So... you have a little over a week to gear yourself up for the surgery? It really isn't very bad. Make sure that you ask your Doc if he is planning to give you a dose of Mitomycin C.

I like your allusion of the long and winding road. That really sums the experience up in a nutshell.

Also, it's good to hear of your Doctor's credentials. We can really be rest assured that he knows what he is doing!

Your friend,
Rosemary

This is a great resource — glad I found it.

By a long and winding road I was examined by a urologist last week, and he found a tumor in my bladder. He plans to remove it on April 18. He did not make it seem like a very big deal — said he would need to follow up with examinations every three months for two years, then every six months for two years, and then annually.

But from reading here, I see that this could be much more complicated than that.

I first saw signs of bleeding more than two years ago, but it didn’t even occur to me to think of my bladder! : Went to a gynecologist, who said the only sign of bleeding he could see was in the fecal test. I had had endometrial cancer in 1998, treated by a complete hysterectomy, so for a second opinion I went to the gyn/oncologist who had been following me for five years, and he came to the same conclusion.

Off I went for a colonoscopy. It was clean, nary a polyp. In the meantime, the bleeding did not recur (at least not consistently), and because I had also developed a really bad back at about that time (I had continuous sciatica for 19 months), the intermittent signs of blood did not get my full attention. I did look up blood in urine in Google, and was reassured when I read that there could be many causes, most of them relatively innocuous.

During that period, I had three bouts of what seemed to be UTIs. I did see a little blood (either colored urine or tiny red dots in my urine) with them, but there was also infection, and in each case, antibiotics seemed to clear everything up. But when I had another one in March, both my primary doctor and my rheumatologist suggested I see a urologist, especially after blood work and a urinalysis showed a decline in kidney function, blood in the urine, signs of anemia, and other alarming details.

So here I am.

The urologist has a very good rep, 35 years experience, and one of his stated specialties is bladder cancer. He came highly recommended by both my primary doctor and my rheumatologist, so I do not think I need to run to New Haven for this first step. (I will have the procedure in a small city hospital.) Does that make sense?

Anyway, sorry to be so long-winded. Trying to sort things out in my mind, so you get stream-of-consciousness writing here!