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Well ... the plot certainly thickened of Father's Day - June 15, 2008 when I awoke to pain in my arm and a heavy pressure on my chest (felt like I woke up with my grand daughter sitting on my chest). That was enough for a trip to urgent care where - to make a story very short - they discovered my heart wasn't doing its thing very efficiently and admitted me to the cardiac unit where - the next day during a treadmill test - I went into Ventricular Tachnocardia. Minor surgery the next day revealed several blocked veins and a blocked artery and a stint was inserted to help maintain blood flow.

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Well, yesterday marked the date - my first Cystoscopy since the latest TUR in February. I must say, the night before was sleepless.  Even though I was not having symptoms, this disease took me by surprise to begin with so I take nothing for granted.

 On this occasion the news is all great!  In fact the Doc says my bladder looks "pristine". Doesn't get any better than that folks.

My thoughts, hopes and prayers are with each one of you still fighting.

God

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  Well, if you missed Part 1 and 2 then you're joining this adventure in at the middle of the end and welcome! I'll just continue where I left it and begin with my experience with BCG. However, I must open with a salient fact

A little over a month before I heard about things like papillary carcinoma, stages, grades tumors I was blessed with a beautiful granddaughter - Addie Jane. I mention it here because during the BCG process she was a great comfort to me along with my two daughters, a son, my wife, sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews and my mom. But Addie - at the time six or seven months

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Part one of this story addressed the diagnosis date and the weeks and months that followed soon thereafter ending with a second TUR in September of 2007. That is where I'll pick this up -beginning with the results of that second procedure and the associated pathology.

As with the first experience, the second TUR pathology confirmed the disease was Ta Stage I noninvasive papillary carcinoma. No real surprise there. Dr. Dato assured me before the procedure that a significant percentage of the time noninvasive cancer - if it reoccurs - reoccurs in the same form and usually in the same area of

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 After several missed attempts at a diagnosis by my primary care physician woefully ignorant of the disease, June 20, 2007 marks the day I was officially diagnosed with bladder cancer.  On that day the Urologist I met only minutes before pointed to the CT film and said "this is a tumor" and - at that very second - my life changed.

Seven years earlier I quit smoking and began to live a fairly healthy lifestyle (save the occasional fast food indulgence and resistance to exercise) and, as such, expected anything but cancer. In fact that ignorant - albeit in the nicest way possible - primary care

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