Newly Diagnosed Hubby Age 46 Surgery Nov. 17th

Hi Bubbles,

sorry about the bong but it looked much more like smoke than bubbles, on the thumb nail! :-[

As for MRSA - yeah it is not just pernicious but very much undescriminatory as to who it attacks > - the disease is almost omni present and a very high percentage of people are carriers, it tends only to invade when there is an open wound or site trauma and the abrasions on your Husband's knee now explain it. I was thinking more in terms of 46 and office or line work than your husband's job. :

It is not just in your area that MRSA is burgeonning but in the UK it is very widespread enjoying the hospital environs >. There are a number of these opportunist infections and their resistance to drug therapy is steadilly increasing. Man's next great pandemic may well be just such a virus or bacteria! The majority of soil samples carry Legionnaire baccillus but the conditions must be right to infect man.

Do they actually have an explanation for the clotting? blocked artery or similar (hence stents?) :-/.

I am glad your urologist is confident of keeping the infection away from the bladder and also from your description the tumours sound far less aggressive than they might have been.

I do hope all goes well for his procedure and he will rapidly be back to normal - the op. is just like shelling peas and utterly routine - it is just that sometimes it can be a bit like peeing shells afterwards :o Don't be alarmed, as they wash out the bladder through the catheter afterwards, sometimes it can take a day or two to calm down and stop peeing Burgundy - but the faster he can manage Claret then Rose he will rapidly be back to Champagne and can get on with life. 8-)

BUT NEVER EVER let him miss a check up or a treatment in the future. There is NOTHING macho about avoiding flexis!

Good luck.

Regards,
Greg L-W.

I am glad to learn that in the case of bladder tumors size doesn't matter

Greg Greg Greg, I am not displaying a bong.  It is called blowing bubbles.  Do you need glasses??  8-)

I totally disgaree with you regarding MRSA and who and how it affects people.  I have done alot of reserch into this subject since it invaded our life.  MRSA does reoccur in majority of cases.  MRSA lives on the skin and in the nose and can enter anywhere there is an abrasion, pimple, incision or cut.  Hubby works as a carpenter and had an abrasion on his knee.  He was removing cabinetry (which included spending alot of time kneeling) that had got ruined in a flood.  There was bio hazard containors stored there as they at one point offered a free clinic in the building.  There is no way to prove where he got it.  I do work in the Emergency Room and we have an average of two DIAGNOSED MRSA infections each week.  Young, old, children, elderly, mddle aged, it does not discriminate and it is more common than people realize.

I feel very confident with the treatment he has recieved via the Infectious Disease doctor and maybe should avoid the whole MRSA subject in this forum.

As for the clots he got 3 weeKs post op, you must first realize that everything that has happened to hubby in not textbook.  He was not inactive post surgery.  He was doing PT and riding a stationary bike.  The clot extended the length of his leg and there were two pulmonry embolisms also.  

Back to the bladder tumor.  It is more like the second biology description.  Tadpole gills .......maybe my description is as if something was underwater waving back and forth like seaweed.  I hope that is better :

I asume most of our answers will be in the pathology report.
I am going to ask about the MytoC treatments.

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences and thoughts!

His MRSA was community acquired.  I work in the ER and it is becoming more and more common.  MRSA has left the confines of hospitals and other facilities..........scary stuff.  

We did consult his infectious disease doc regarding the surgery and the MRSA.  He said one will not affect the other.  He had just finsihed his thrid round of IV treatments on Thursday when we got the bladder cancer news.  

I never asked about the urine but I do know that earlier urine tests were "concerning" as they put it but I never asked them to elaborate.  I guess I will now.

All I could think of when watching the tumor on the screen during his Cysto was a coral reef.  Very irregular and jagged.

I am glad in the case of tumors that size doesn't matter  

Yes it is Bubbles.....that's my nickname.

Hi,

sure is a case of 'life is what gets in the way of your plans' but chill - 5cms may well not be a cause for major drama.

Your description of like a coral reef - lets try to get closer descriptively!

Was it a large flat granular area 5cms. across or was it an area of 5cms. growing things sort of like a cross between a mushroom and the gills of a tadpole (remember your high school biology lessons when you were making the bong you proudly display in your photo )

IF the former don't waste time, but if the latter you need to act rapidly. Your husband sounds relatively fit - if this is the case then the MRSA should clear, I got a similar HAI in my nephrectomy wound and it took about 3 months to end, that said it did rot out an area about the size of a tennis ball at my waist along side the spine - my surgeon kept cutting it open to drain and packing it to keep it away from the spine and it eventually worked out OKish.

Don't worry - that merely diminishes the ability to deal with the Challenge!

Ask your urologist 3 questions:
1. What type of Bladder Cancer is it
2. How can he increase the security of NOT transferring MRSA to the bladder
3. Wouldn't MytomicinC treatment of the bladder be a good idea.

Don't let the technicians fob you off with merely dealing with symptoms - you need to be looking at causes! How did MRSA get INTO the knee as it normally a problem that infects an open wound!

How come they managed to get a clot whilst under close supervision?

Good luck with his procedure for the Bladder and if they can assure you he is secure against MRSA in the bladder it should be no problem.

IF it is the later type of BC I described you may wish to consider delaying the op until the MRSA is cleared up - perhaps with his complications a second opinion MIGHT be worthwhile.

Good luck.

Regards,
Greg L-W.

So sorry to hear of your husbands run of bad health and serious infections. The size of the tumor does not indicate how serious or invasive it is. The type and stage is important not the size. Many on this forum have had 5 cm tumors. My original was 4 cm but a papillary and low grade. I have not heard a tumor described as a coral reef. Did the urologist do a bladder wash or urine cytology to test for cancer cells? Low grade cancer cells seldom show in urine cytology or an MP22 but high grade cancer does. If there was a test done on the urine that did not show cancer cells, the growth is probably low grade and would not be much of a threat to him by waiting until he is past the other complications. Did a prior hospital stay cause the MRSA which is a serious staph infection that spreads in many hospitals. Just curious, in your picture, are you blowing bubbles.

Hi everyone
This is a sad way to have to meet new people but it sure is a comfort knowing others are in the same boat.

My husband age 46 was diagnosed with bladder cancer this past week via a CT scan preformed post visible blood in urine.  He had an in office cystoscopy on Thursday and the tumor is 5cm.

He has had an extensive and complicated medical history since August 1st of this year.  He was admitted to the hospital on August 1st with what was thought to be a basic case of cellulitis in the left knee area.  To make this short and sweet he was inpatient for 14 days, the infection was MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staph Aureus) which caused him to have septic bursitis, had an orthopedic doc open the knee, wash out the infection, did a 5 week course of daily IV Vancimycin, suffered a DVT and PE, has had two more outbreaks of MRSA and now this.  His prior medical history is positive for an appendectomy at age 22.  

The urologist wanted to operate next day but due to the fact he is on blood thinners for the blood clots we have to wait until this Friday.  We are tapering down his doses of blood thinners and he will have a filter placed in his artery to make sure he does not have a clot let loose during this.  Very very complicated as I stated.

So my direct questions regarding the blader cancer are...... Isn't a 5cm tumor rather large?  I stayed in the procedure room for his Cystoscopy and the tumor resembles a coral reef.  The doctor also mentioned that is prostate is enlarged.  Is that an indication that the cancer has spread to the prostate?

I'm so glad I found this site.  I have felt so helpless watching a man who has missed two days of work in the past 25 years have so many medical problems in such a short time.  This bladder cancer thing really has me worried.........