Hi Rudy,
Your posting really struck home with me because like you, my main concern was being able to stay active after bladder removal. I am retired and live in northern Minnesota by the Boundary Waters Wilderness. I canoe, camp, backpack, cross contry ski and love the outdoors. I had neobladder surgery a little over 3 years ago and can tell you that my life has not really changed at all. I am as active in the outdoors as ever. I would say the only real difference now is that I have to urinate about every 2 hours including at night. I have adjusted to the night time routine and it really does not effect my ability to get a good nights sleep. I even winter camp up here in below zero weather and my neobladder has yet to freeze up! My recommendation for you is to find the best surgeon you can. Neobladder surgery has varried outcomes which are mostly associated to the skill of the surgeon. My surgeon had done over 700 neobladders at the time of my surgery and was doing around 100 a year. In light of this, I would ask doctors how many they have preformed in total and how many they do a year. I would also ask how many of the neobladders they do end up being totaly succesful. I asked my doctor what he thought the odds of me having a correctly functioning neobladder and he said 90 per cent. One thing you have going for you is that you appear to be in excellent physical condition. I had more than one surgeon tell me that because of my active life style and good physical condition that it greatly increased the odds of a succesfull outcome and much less chance of complications. As far as recovery time that can vary greatly from person to person and again by the skill of the surgeon. As it turned out, I did have a complication that took two other minor operations to open up the connection between the neobladder and the urethera. I was able to be some what active after about 8 weeks, but it was about 8 months before I really felt confident enough to get back to all my old outdoor activitys. I think one of the reasons it took so long was just gaining confidence that my new plumbing was going to keep functioning correctly. I dont think I would go the robotics route, but that is just my opinion. If you have more questions or want to hear a more detailed account of my experience, feel free to send me a personal email.
KC