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Bladder Surgery to remove and determine stage, type, etc..
I am 52 years old. I have never smoked, but I did serve in Iraq 20 years ago where I worked near the burn pits (Toxic Exposure). On Christmas morning, while at the airport to fly to Arizona I had blood in my urine a couple of times. I quickly made an appt with my doctor for Jan 3rd. When I landed, no more blood or thereafter. Well, I kept the appt and all my tests came back normal. There was no microscopic blood in my urine. He decided to schedule a CT scan (Jan 17th) just to make sure and 9 days later he called me on a Sunday night (Jan 26th) and gave me the news. I have a mass 2.9cm x 2.8cm x 2.2cm in my bladder. No findings for metastatic disease in other areas. We were able to get an appt with a Urologist (Jan 28th) for a Cystoscopy. Based on his findings and he took pictures, I have Papillary tumors. During the Cystoscopy they took some urine for tests. They found numerous microscopic red blood cells in the urine. He didn't take a Biopsy but decided to go ahead and schedule surgery (Feb 13th) for Bladder tumor scraping, biopsy, and cauterize the area to stop the bleeding. I will leave with a Foley Catheter, which will be removed on Feb 17th. I won't know the results (Stage, Grade, type of cancer, non-invasive or invasive) until my follow-up Feb 27th. It seems like a long time to wait given others on here received their reports in a couple of days. Maybe my pathology report will be available to me earlier through my online medical records.
Should I get a PET Scan? Can anyone tell me what recovery is like? What should I expect going through this process?
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I had similar reaction to BCG. Drink plenty of fluids and rest. It seemed like it took about 24 hours before I felt better. It’s not as easy for some to take this treatment. Let your provider know how you are reacting to it. I hope and pray the best for you.
Thank you for your support and encouragement, Deb. I really appreciate it 🙏
My 2nd TURBT was completed. This time everything went normal. No Blood clots. Catheter was removed 4 days later. Pathology report came back with no additional cancer cells. They really dug deep into the muscle in 3 different areas just to make sure it was not muscle invasive. BCG Treatments start 6 weeks after surgery due to current shortage. The good news though is that the FDA just approved another company's BCG treatment. https://immunitybio.com/fda-authorizes-immunitybio-to-provide-recombinant-bcg-rbcg-to-urologists-to-address-tice-bcg-shortage/,
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3 Reactions@stans2000 I’m happy to hear everything went well this time around for the TURBT. A blessing it’s not muscle invasive. Ask if you can get a prescription for EMLA CREAM …it is Lidocaine. If you put it on an hour before and cover area in plastic wrap…you won’t feel anything with the BCG treatment. My husband has 2 more Gemcitabine/Cisplatin treatments to do and I always squirt a bit of cream on his PORT ..cover with Saran Wrap and when it’s time for the blood test , the nurse removes it and he doesn’t feel any pain. My husband was diagnosed with muscle invasive stage 2 BC…he is going for a radical cystectomy on May 29th. I’m praying for you xx
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1 ReactionGlad to hear this TURBT went better than your 1st. My husband is 1 week post his 1st TURBT. He still has some drops of blood in his urine each time he urinates. I’ve read this can go on for up to 3 weeks. We will talk to his doctor tomorrow about the results.
Best of luck with the results. I just had my second post-surgery Cystoscopy and the cancer has not returned.