Hello everyone, so the love of my life just celebrated his 51st birthday on August 2nd and the next day had a CT (looking for what might be pinching a nerve) of his pelvis. Well, you guessed it the incidental finding was a 3 cm tumor in his bladder consistent with bladder carcinoma.
He had a cystoscopy done on the 28th and we were informed that the tumor was cancer (95%) and unfortunately there are concerns that the tumor is blocking the left ureter. My husband had been having unexplained back pain, dark urine, problems urinating, and sharp headaches for the last several months. He reported all of this to his doctor, however he is seen at the VA and has a multitude of other medical issues so we believe that this was simply chalked up to side effects of medications or the like.
He had his surgery on September 3rd and the tumor was to be removed, BCG to be injected, a stent and dye to go up and check his left ureter and kidney. What actually happened was once his urologist removed the head of the tumor it was no longer blocking the ureter and it was able to open. The doctor then continued to remove the remainder of the tumor buried in the bladder and it was deemed to be a total of
4 cm. Once my husband was in recovery the doctor spoke with me (with minimal bedside manner) explaining that he was unable to place the BCG as it was unsafe to do so as he had to go in too far cutting the entire tumor out(up and under) as it could cause systemic absorption
Every question I asked him that day was answered with we have to wait for the pathology report.
I was happy that the tumor was out, but confused about so much more.
My questions were:
How far into the bladder wall did you have to go?
Could it have reseeded due to the lack of BCG?
When will he get BCG or other chemotherapy?
Are you going to check his kidneys still?
What about a PET scan?
When will the pathology report be back?
So frustrating to say the least.
My husband's follow up is tomorrow afternoon and we are hoping that the pathology report will be back. It's confusing my husband doesn't smoke he chews tobacco, I guess he can get it that way I don't know. Anyone else have BC and chew tobacco?