Hey conchman, it sounds to me like the 39 sessions of radiation did a job on your bladder neck. Not being a radiologist or knowing if your recurrence was in that area, I cannot hazard a guess as to why your treatment had such disastrous effects.
I know I was given a list - and a speech - of possible adverse consequences to having radiation but I didn’t know - and still don’t know what other options I had other than lifelong ADT.
What happened to you can certainly happen to me sooner or later. I will be pissed (not funny) at the world but all I’ll be able to do is shrug and have surgery like you are having. I’ve met men with bladder cancer (which I’ve also had) who’ve had the ileal conduit since their treatment involved complete cystectomy and they were pleased at having the option of not having to catheterize themselves or otherwise invade their body cavity many times during the day.
I was told that salvage treatment could reawaken my bladder cancer to a more aggressive form, but again I had to choose between dying from this or dying from that.
Surprisingly, my urologist told me that prostate cancer kills you slowly over many years but bladder cancer can kill you in ONE. So now I have 6 month cystoscopes which are far more anxiety laden than the regular old PSA’s let me tell you!!
I will be thinking of you and looking forward to hearing that all went well and your life has been made better for once…
Phil