surgery over

That amazes me. He should have brought it to you himself. To just hand a layperson their very major pathology report with no explanation just doesn't make sense.

Except for the prostate part, your husband and I are identical. Hopefully it was all removed and you two will live very happily and have very long and loving lives.

Your husband will most likely have to have chemo, probably starting in November. The rule of thumb seems to be three months after surgery.

On the whole, not exactly the perfectly clean diagnosis we all hope for, but not too bad either. To put it in perspective, a roommate of mine in the hospital was diagnosed at UCLA and given two weeks to live. He was 54, with a wife and young son.

I'm doing great, and your husband will too.

Zach

I'll pass this info along to my husband - hopefully it will make him accept it better. The swelling has subsided some, though. He is feeling a little better each day.

We did get a copy of the path report today but have not gotten to talk to the doctor yet. The following are some of it.

D. Lymph node, "left obturator", excision:
Metastatic carcinoma in one of two lymph nodes

J. Ureter, left distal, excision:
-High grade urothelial dysplasia

L. Urinary bladder, prostate, radical cystoprostatectomy:
Invasive Papillary urothelial carcinoma, high grade, involving bladder diverticulum
Size 1.0 cm
Lymphovascular invasion identified
Negative margins of resection
AJCC TNM Stage PT3a N1 MX (Stage IV)
Tumor extends into, but not through wall

Prostate Radical Cystoprostatectomy:
Prostatic Adenocarcinoma, involving both left and right sides of prostate, gleason grade 3+4, Score 7
Tumor does penetrate prostatic capsule
perineural invasion identified
seminal vesicles negative for tumor
apical margin negative for tumor
AJCC TNM Stage PT2C N0 MX (Stage 2)

N. Ureter, left distal, excision:
Urothelial carcinoma in situ (close to stapled end, open end is negative for urothelial carcinoma)

If you understand any of this, please post. It doesn't sound good to me.

My selective memory blocked out my scrotal pain, but my experience might have been a bit different since I also had some hardware installed. Just this morning, though, while looking for some underwear, I found several pairs that I cut open right after the surgery because the elastic on them was so tight it felt like they were killing me.

Stephany, how did your husband respond when he was told about his lymph node involvement?

My doctor told me that walking allot was the way to reduce the scrotum size.
He told me to walk 15 times a day. The walks were not long but often. On day three I did wear briefs while I walked. Since I had loss about 40 pounds (on purpose) since I found out I had cancer, my old briefs were not too constricting.

I was told that the patients that do the many short walks recover drastically faster then those that walk few but long. The recovery time from many short walks is amazingly quick. Reduction of swelling and healing was quick for me. My scrotum swelling went down while I was in the hospital on day five. I had no pain at all anywhere after day six. He said it was because of the walks which caused the blood to flow and that helps reduce the swelling and increase healing.

On a side not: This weekend I was at a Football Coaches retreat. On my seventh week anniversary since my surgery this past weekend I was able to play 18 holes of golf. I did not have any pain. And the most amazing thing was that my seal on my pouch stayed intact with no leakage. My game actually improved since I was leery of swinging to hard.

Good luck on the reduction of swelling.

Rick

Wow, things seen to be going well for your husband

After my RC-Neo the initial swelling subsided about day 3 (no cold pack used), but my testicles ached on and off for about 3 months. It was nothing serious, just something to be careful about...

Hope thing keep moving along as they are.

Scott

Let me know if you ever get one to fit...we didn't! I'm glad he's down to one pill every 4 hours.

And about that ice pack thing....I remember when my husband had his TURBT, and used an ice pack on his scrotum. He ended up with a really bad case of the shivers. It seemed to cool down his whole body, so I'd ask about that one before doing it. Besides, it isn't heat that's making it swollen, it's fluid.

Good luck...let us know if you find anything that works!

Stephany in Iowa