Dear Keith,
Your mother's diagnosis is not as bad as it may sound. The TNM staging system is here on WebCafe, on the home page under 'newly diagnosed' if you want to look; any positive "N" is a positive node, means stage 4. It was the grade that was staged at "2", or intermediate out of high/low grade. Usually invasive tumors are high grade or grade 3. And the way your mother's cancer was nearing the vasculation and nerve system around or in the bladder sounds like the way high grade blc works.
5 lymph nodes removed and one positive: with some luck that was the only positive node and it is now gone. The size of it is actually small, 1.cm, and that it did not escape through the capsule of the node is also a good sign, it's a very minimal involvement and spread.
Bladder cancer is notoriously understaged, thus the best, most accurate staging is post-op. It's almost impossible to detect lymph nodes at that small size, so your doctor isn't at fault, really..it's just the nature of this beast, I'm afraid.
Chemo could give her long term survival, I know other women who were cured, and I mean cured, after having chemo following bladder removal with minimal lymph node involvement. Chemo before surgery, as well as some who've had successful chemo after surgery. I'd be willing to hook your mother up for a chat, but I suspect you're in the UK?
The women I'm speaking of are American. But..I am sure there are similar success stories in the UK.
Don't worry that chemo is a fate worse than death. It's survivable, it's also temporary. Your mother is young, if her general health is good, good chance the chemo experience will be less horrible than you expect.
We can only hope and pray there wasn't microscopic spread. Otherwise, chemo is the best way to combat this and it can actually work. Everything post-cancer is a gamble, and every cancer survivor must weight the risk vs. benefit of any and all procedures.
Best wishes and keep us posted.
Wendy
PS I empathise with your fear of chemo; my sister and father died terrible cancer deaths mostly due to the aggressive chemo (breast and lymphoma), my sister was only 46, my father was 38 when he died. I started out looking for other treatments when another sister got bladder cancer at 49 ('98), and have always been very wary of chemo. I have breast cancer (dec.'99, age 43) and refused chemo myself, had other treatments. But after years of watching what happens in bladder cancer-land,I came to respect that it can actually help, and that my prejudices were personal.
