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I have as of today reached the 1 year anniversary since my diagnosis. Stage 1, non muscle bladder cancer. I am 45 years old.

I underwent two resection/biopsies with mitromyicin and a 6 week induction with BCG. So far, a year later I am clean.

 I am wondering about others experience with the BCG treatment. I handled it well, with the first three treatments being a breeze and the last three being painful but tolerable. I did experience some mild flu like symptoms with my energy levels being low as my biggest complaint.  Now, 6 months after my last treatment I find I am experiencing flu like

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Hi, please excuse what I can only describe as catharsis.

A Short History: 1999, I passed blood in my urine, went to hosptial, and had a urogram that revealled a poorly functioning right kindey (as I recall). I was diagnosed as having a kidney stone that had broken up in/near the kidney. Despite weeing through a sieve for a week I saw no stone (fragments). Followup urogram revealled a well functioning kidney. At no point do I remember the Urologist looking at my bladder.

In February 2010, following ambulatory monitoring for hypertension, I was referred by my Cardiologist for a urinary tract

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I have created a flow chart for bladder cancer patients.  It can pretty much be used at any time from initial concern about the potential of having bladder cancer through various stages of treatment.

 My hope is that people will find this useful.  Rather than posting it everywhere and having to try to maintain version control on a number of sites, I am putting the link to ABLCS forum where I originally posted it.

I am not a doctor but I do have a good bit of experience as a bladder cancer patient.  This guide has been reviewed by a number of other bladder cancer survivors as well.

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Hello everyone,

 I am writing for my husband who was diagnosed with CIS baldder cancer last June (2008) and first wanted to thank all of you for your blogs and stories which helped us prepare for what was to come.

Long story short, my husband is 48 and like many of you had urinary urgency, blood in the urine and repeated trips to the doctor in 2007 & 2008. He has a strong family history of Prostate cancer so I, being a nurse, kept dragging him back.  Luckily our Nurse Practioner became suspicious and referred him to a urologist who took a "closer look" ( sorry for the pun).

His first Cysto in

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Part IV

My urologist returned in January. He was unaware of what had happened until I spoke to him. His response was that he was not concerned about the stricture. "The important thing was to be sure that there was no cancer." I fully understood his focus on the cancer but was unhappy that that focus appeared to be distracting him from dealing with a problem that made me miserable and which I wanted to be sure would not recur. I answered, "I'm glad you're not worried about the stricture, but I am!" He assured me that he would treat the stricture with laser at the next cystoscopy. A urine

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Part III

When you learn that you have cancer, it changes you for ever. Every clean bill of health is a celebration, and an invitation to go back to living, but... waiting once more for the ticking time bomb, waiting for the other shoe to drop. And then, there are complications of treatment that never let you forget.
I thought that my bladder cancer was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but I was wrong. Two years ago, just after my mother's 83 birthday, she developed leukemia. She quickly went from an independent woman with her own apartment and car to assisted living. Her doctors were

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Part II

I took my catheter out and prepared to enjoy my recovery with all my problems behind me. I had my first Christmas celebration with gifts and stockings since my daughter's boyfriend wasn't Jewish and the kids wanted to do it. Of course, we threw a little Hanukkah Gelt into the stockings to make it ecumenical. The hooks for the stockings are still screwed into the mantle. Then we went out to the movies. I almost drove us into some wrong way traffic - maybe still under the influence of anesthesia. I made it through the movie without having to go to the rest room, but afterwards, I had a

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I was diagnosed with Papillary Carcinoma (G1pTa) in June of Last year.

I have undergone a TURBT at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh. A 1 cm tumour was removed, and a one off installation of Mitomycin-C was given. As I was catheterised, I spent 1 night in hospital, and was released the next morning. I then spent a long, long week awaiting my pathology results. My consultant being a very cautious man sent me for an IVU. Fortunately that showed no involvement with my kidneys or ureters.

So far my check cystoscopies have been clear-long may they continue.

I consider myself to be very lucky.

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Thank you all for your expressions of concern and encouragement.

I had my TURBT on Thursday. Will know the results at the follow-up consult when we get the pathology report. My doc also administered Mitomycin during the procedure.

Earlier in the week, during the pre-op consult, we discussed the implications of this recurrence. He said that if it turned out to be T1 (he is in the camp that considers T1 to be invasive) we'd have to begin consideration of bladder removal. If it remains Ta, then we can look at BCG maintenance therapy, given the particulars of my history with this disease.

I showed

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I had a TUR in Sept, then 8 tx of mitomycin.  First 2 three month cystos were good.  Then this last one showed tiny recurrence and Doc removed it in the office.  Now 8 more tx's and these are the ones that I am having a problem with.  But, all in all, I am doing well.  Just upset about not being able to hold for 2 hours.  One day at a time, one tx at a time.

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