I wanted to update you all on my husband's status. We had our appointment yesterday at the UIHC with Dr. Michael O'Donnell. Dr. O'Donnell went over the ct scan and the pathology report from UIHC. This is in the pathology report from the UIHC and is concerning to Dr. O'Donnell "Although no definite muscularis propria is identified, the abundance of invasive neoplasm, combined with the observed growth pattern, make it highly likely that muscularis propia invasive disease is present in this patient." Dr. O'Donnell therefore feels that the tumor is a T3 and is muscle invasive and he wants to treat it aggressively. He has ordered three months of chemo, cat scan after second month of chemo and then he would be off of chemo for one month and then have surgery to have his bladder/prostate removed. We start chemo on 8/23 and will do it at UIHC as that is what Dr. O'Donnell has recommended. I'm thinking he will probably have surgery in December/January. Dr. O'Donnell said the recovery time will be approximately three months and usually six weeks the pain is pretty much gone. I question that as my husband is still recovering from the TURBT and it has been one month since that was done. They feel that with the Chemo before surgery it gives him a 5-10% better chance of survival which is on top of the 50/50 chance he is already given.
There were concerns by the intern of a couple of lymph nodes because they were showing up on the ct scan and normally don't, but Dr. O'Donnell wasn't too concerned about those. He will be doing a neobladder instead of an ostomy.
So now we start chemo on August 23rd and start our climb up the mountain.
Thanks for listening!