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I had the 3rd BCG today.

After a lot of questions, and even asking what room I had the treatment in last week, the nurse determined that they probably introduced a 16" catheter into my bladder last week....TOO LARGE! :-/

The Dr. said, "Let's go ahead with treatment.  I'm pretty sure that I'm right about this.  If you have any problems this time, we will reduce dosage on next go round."

So, far...very little discomfort and no blood on first 2 voids....

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I am a 65 year old male dealing with non invasive bladder cancer for over 6 years.  During this time, I have had quarterly cystos, several BCG procedurs including Mitomycin, Interferon and Epirubicin.  During 2006, I had two quarterly cysto's that were clear and was hopeful the worst was over.  Last cysto revealed 4 new tumours, one rather large on to of previous scar tissue.

Side effects from TURB last week have been very unpleasant, lots of bleeding, clots, painful urination.  Now scheduled for IVP to check kidneys prior to deciding on next course of therapy.  If biopsy reveals non invasive

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It seems that my bladder likes these BCG treatments less and less. :-/

I'm 3 hours into my 2nd treatment, 2nd round, and I'm very uncomfortable with lots of bleeding.
I've peed every 5 minutes for an hour and it burns like razor blades.

I may feel a little bit of lessening off as I sit here.  I'm trying to drink lots of water to flush myself out.

It wasn't like this with the first few treatments.

My Mom says that maybe it means that it's working.

It would be nice to know that these treatments are really worth going through.
I guess we have to trust the experts on that.

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Wendy,

   I think technically the thing I participated in was/is a study -- not a trial.  
Although I'm not sure if there's a difference or not.  Because it was a only Phase 1 of this particular study it's not known whether it works or not.  Phase 1 study just determine safety/toxicity.  It has been tried with other types of cancer tumors with some degree of success.  It's not something that'll help me in the future because I had an early RC for T1G3 -- so the tumor is gone (hopefully never to return in other places).  But, who knows, with it in my system it definitely won't hurt to have those

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I saw my long-time gynecologist today. (I noticed that he has lost his Doogie Howser look this year.)  Anyway, he is the one who referred me to the Urologist because of blood in my urine.  I thanked him for it.

As he was scheduling me for a pelvic ultrasound because of the pelvic pain/constipation/urine blockage that I am experiencing, he looked at me in what seemed to be a sincere way, and said,

"I don't trust you anymore since you got the bladder cancer".

I'm not real sure what he meant, but I think he meant that he will be breathing down my neck to keep up with yearly cancer screenings.    

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Much thanks, Chris...

Good to hear from you.   I hope you are well also.  I think of you and the kids.

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Path report came back today "benign"...

:'(My last conversation with my doc, as he is leaving to go to another group in another city :'(

He said, "Don't let recurrances get you down"....

and also, "You can do all the wrong things and the cancer won't come back, or you can do all the right things and it will come back..it's just the nature of the beast"...

For the time being I'm sticking to my protocol...

3 more BCG's in

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The biopsy is over.  The worst part being the 2 1/2 hour holding time lying in bed with a needle in your arm and being hungry.

I was only under heavy sedation, not anesthesia or epidural,  and I believe that I talked through the surgery, or at least part of it.  Hope I was nice, whatever I said.

The doc said everything looked good.  He cauterized the site and took a sample of the healthy part of my bladder too, for path comparison.

Now we are waiting for the results on Tuesday.

Thanks for the support from all you great people...  

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Thanks to you both.  You are both in my thoughts as well....let's hang in there together!!

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I'm going for biopsy # 3 tomorrow.

The doc called tonight to see if I were jittery or had any questions.

I asked him if he would be giving me the mitomycin if he didn't see anything in there, and at first he asked me if I wanted him to give it (?) but before I could answer, he said, "that's a good question." and then he started talking and said "only if there were residual", but if he didn't see anything, then "no" he wouldn't give it...

I asked if he were going to do a quick path on the specimen, and he said "no"
because you get a better grade of specimen without the quick freeze...

So, I will

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