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Bladder Cancer Group: Introduce yourself and connect with others
Bladder Cancer | Last Active: 1 day ago | Replies (149)Comment receiving replies
Hi to all brave warriors here,
My name is Josephine Bommarito and my very close brother 75 named Philip was diagnosed with Locally Advanced Bladder Cancer Stage 3 with travel to Lymph nodes in November 2024. He is not a healthy person, high blood pressure, heart rate, high glucose, blocked right kidney and now Bladder Cancer. He also has confusion, can’t think correctly. We don’t know if it is caused by the kidney function or Dementia. He is supposed to start chemo tomorrow, (Cisplatin & Gemzar) 2 weeks on 1 week off. 6 hours a session. However, he is not ready and not committed. He also had a bad fall at work in September, blow to the back of his head. My question here is did you all have a port, IV or picc line to receive treatment?
Replies to "Hi to all brave warriors here, My name is Josephine Bommarito and my very close brother..."
Welcome to Connect @jojo2059 . It has to be heart wrenching to see your brother going through so many health issues. My husband had high grade bladder cancer diagnosed 5 years ago. He has had multiple surgeries and did have chemo with Cisplatin after the first surgery. He was recommended to have a port and that worked well for him. It was removed around a year after treatment. Your brother needs help in making the decisions about treatment, but ultimately it is his decision unless he is declared mentally incompetent. Has he had neurologic testing for his potential dementia?
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Hi Josephine. I had chemo (just as you described...same meds and schedule) this past summer. I had/still have a port and can't imagine doing the treatments without it. It makes things much easier on the patient in my opinion. They can do the chemo and bloodwork taken from the port and it saves your veins from all of those painful sticks. I'm glad I had one put in.