Folks,
I've seen people ask a few times about how to tell others about your having bladder cancer. I was going through my old email files about this trying to find some answers about other things and I thought some of you might find this of interest. When my bladder cancer came back in 2008, the initial diagnosis from my local urologist was that it had spread to both kidneys. That later turned out not to be the case (yay!). In any case, I discussed what was going on with my CEO (I work for a small consulting firm) and he suggested I let the other folks in the firm know what was going on. The following is the email I sent to the firm. It's one way to let people know what's going on. Obviously, family notification is different, but this seemed to work for me at the time for colleague notification:
Age 54
10/31/06 dx CIS (TisG3) non-invasive (at 47)
9/19/08 TURB/TUIP dx Invasive T2G3
10/8/08 RC neobladder(at 49)
2/15/13 T4G3N3M1 distant metastases(at 53)
9/2013 finished chemo -cancer free again
1/2014 ct scan results....distant mets
2/2014 ct result...spread to liver, kidneys, and lymph...