Hi all-
My husband was first diagnosed with transitional cell bladder cancer in 1998. Between 1998 and 2002, he had several surgeries, several rounds of BCG and then the last one, in the winter of 2002, they instilled Mitomycin. He was not very comfortable for a few months when urinating, but at his next checkup, all looked well and he was cancer free for all this time. Back in January, he mentioned to me that his pee was a "little burny" after he exercised. He assumed he needed to drink more water and it was only after I had surgery in February that he mentioned it again. He downplayed it but I encouraged him to call the urologist and see what they thought. So they had him come in, did the urinalysis for infection (which came back negative) and then sent the urine off for the FISH test and all. It took a good two weeks and we were just expecting to be able to go out and do a mini celebration as we often do after his now yearly checkups. But the test came back showing cancer cells in his urine. After a stressful night, he was actually able to get in the next day for a CT scan to rule out any involvement of the ureters and kidneys. That really scared us and we were very relieved when the results came in the next day and all looked normal on that. He had a scope done the next week and there was an area that was a little red and suspicious( which was biopsied in September 10 and came back ok) and two little of the stalky growths near one of the ureters. So he is scheduled for April 18th to have the resection and have Mitomycin instilled again. His urologist was new to us- my husband was with the older Dr. in the practice and never saw her before, but after his checkup in September we received a letter saying his Dr. was moving away. We really liked this younger woman Dr. though- very much.
I just wanted to reach out on this board- more my style than my hubbies- and I found great help and comfort from a different board for my recent uncomfortable health issues.
I hesitated to post at first because many of you look like you are in the first year or so. My husband has had many many pain free and no treatment free years in here- this is why they are so vigilant with this type of cancer however, and the Dr. reinforced that for us.
Bambi
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