My healthy and athletic husband’s urologist discovered a tumor on my husband’s bladder on 1/17 after initially treating him for what was thought to be an enlarged prostate. We were gut punched!
First TURBT was 2/2, a 6 cm tumor just above the bladder neck was completely removed. The doctor said it definitely looked superficial but because his prostate was enlarged, he was concerned that it might be invasive and high grade.
Husband recovered quickly after an overnight stay and had the catheter removed the next day. Minimal bleeding after resection of prostate and tumor removal.
Pathology came back stage 1, non-invasive, high grade. Doctor disagrees and thinks it’s stage 4. He wants to take out the bladder and prostate.
He does a second look on 3/2 to see if it is in fact a bladder tumor only or prostate cancer that has spread and to get more samples from the original tumor site, the prostate, and some of the bladder muscle.
He’s shocked (and a little disappointed) when he tells me that my husband’s bladder looks really good and there is only scar tissue from the site of the original tumor.
Pathology comes back stage 1, non-invasive, no prostate involved and no cancer in the bladder muscle or prostate. Also no new tumors and nothing in the lymph nodes thank God!
We get a second opinion from a bladder cancer specialist who also recommends bladder removal but doesn’t see the need to take the prostate, but agrees with us that he try BCG first. Our urologist didn’t want to try BCG at all which was a bit off-putting.
We talk to our urologist again yesterday and he reiterates that the bladder looks really good and that my husband’s age, fitness level and energy level is all pointing to the positive but he still wants to do bladder removal. He also says that there was only “some” high grade tissue in the tumor, the entire tumor was not high grade. He also relented to trying BCG but says that if anything recurs after the first induction, he will strongly suggest removal.
We just want to make sure that we take advantage of the reasonable approaches before going straight to bladder removal.
This is my husband’s first time ever being “sick” in 56 years of living. We want to do what’s best for him physically and mentally.
I’ve been immersing myself in research and patient experiences since January and would love to hear your thoughts.
