My object here is to share with those that want to read this, my experiences with Mitomycin C therapy. Hopefully, anyone that is faced with the six to eight weeks of therapy will gain some knowledge and support from my experiences. I do this mainly because when I was faced with starting my therapy, many individuals here shared their experiences and support. This will be my effort to return the favor. I also understand my post is not unique.
Let me start off with giving you some history of my BC. I was diagnosed in July of 2005 with a large (bush shaped) tumor that my Uro said was about the size of a golf ball. The classification came back T1G2 (if I have my terminology correct). All I remember my Uro saying that it was non-invasive and the muscle tissue he took had no abnormal pathology. He also told me he did a chemo wash while I was under the anesthesia (I haven’t seen anyone else have that).
I then started my quarterly cysto. (I love the expression here of “poke and peek”). The first year he found on two occasions small polyps that he removed in the office (i.e. “snip and zap”). After over a year of clean cysto, January’s poke and peek found four polyps. I had TURB number two on Feb. 5th. The result if I got this right was TaG1. However my Uro recommended that we do a round of Mitomycin therapy. Yesterday (Feb. 25th) was round one.
To say the least, I was apprehensive and scared. To make matters worse, the Uro’s office failed to order the drugs and wanted to reschedule. After several phone calls to the office manager and my insurance company, we overcame the obstacle and I had my treatment. To my surprise, I had very little discomfort with the insertion of the catheter and the chemo. I went home and did the chicken rotisserie turning every 15 minutes. During the evening I drank for me an excessive amount of water. I experienced very little burning when peeing, but did have some spasm (not excessive or intolerable) during the evening. The worse part was that I was up and down all night going to the bathroom. I feel very fortunate that I tolerated the drugs with very little effects. Hopefully, the next seven rounds will be the same. I will keep you informed. Chuck :
