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I had my 8.5 hour surgery on January 2nd, 2008.  Long story short: wound up with staph at incision after surgery, rehospitalized, basically lost 2 weeks of Kegel training time. However, when trying, urine and mucus constantly leaked AROUND Foley anyway, Doctor & nurses too busy for me, still practicing Kegel at home,to no avail.
I've been to almost every story board for women and BC NeoBladder and I know it takes time but I don't EVER GET a "full" or "gaseous" or "feel wind" or "bloated" or "uncomfortable" as the need arises to urinate.  I NEVER feel the urge - 5 minutes or 2 hours. but every

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It's been almost one year since I added to this post so I decided I would continue the story here.  First off, I have had several 3 scans since surgery and so far so good!

In other posts I talk about hypercontinence or the in-ability to urinate.  This is one of those issues that a few will encounter and of course... I had to be one.  Following surgery I was doing OK training myself to void and hold but I also experienced several UTI's (urinary tract infections).  These were horrible because you feel miserable for a few days and sweat with fever the whole time.  Finally my Uro asked me to cath

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[quote]Hi,
My sister had the same diagnosis as you and she is now 8 yrs down the road and doing well. She had two recurs the first year but clean ever since.

I have confidence that you will fall on the good side of the stats and stay well. The last I read the risk of recurrence was 38%, the risk of progression around 3% and the risk of death from is about 1%. Those are very good odds in cancer-land, where all things are relative.

Your life will never be quite the same, no matter how good the prognosis. Life long follow up is still necessary, but there is discussion of extending the follow up to

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I am a 67 yr old male that had radical cystectomy with Studer ileal neobladder in 2005.  I am very pleased with my situation except for having to cope with incontinence ever since the surgery.  The only advice I’ve received is to do Kegel exercises and I admit that I never gave that a lengthy try.  My concern is that it appears that the problem is getting worse and I have to change pads about 3 times per 24 hours.  Though I’m very active with yard work and walk 30 min 3 times a week, physical exertion causes much loss of control, esp in hot weather.

Any tips or success stories with Kegels

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In my most recent update I mention having found a solution for my incontinence, and I go on from there and tell of an additional find (another form of estrogen) that helped me even more with my problem.  What I didn't mention was what made me ask for more assistance and that came because of a set back I had at the end of May 2004.
I had been going along using my PremPro/Premarin and I was so thankful because of the huge difference it made in my day to day life with my continence.  During the Memorial Day week-end I had one of my horrendous three day migraines (started Friday night and

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[size=16] 30 November 2005[/size]
I've had four follow-up CT scans and so far all is clear. Although my first follow-up in August 2004 had me holding my breath for the next three months, as I had a newly enlarged lymph node on that scan. Dr. El-Galley (my surgeon) told me it very well could be enlarged because of the surgery alone, but if there was an increase in size on the next scan three months from then we'd do a biopsy. Fortunately there was no increase in size on the CT in November 2004, and my next follow-up would be six months down the road. In my initial write up I mentioned my being

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December 20, 2000

This story was originally written as a letter to another patient of Dr. Mark Schoenberg, our surgeon for our common bladder cancer and successful neo-bladder replacement

I too had a successful bladder replacement (neo-bladder) performed by Mark Schoenberg, M.D, Director of Urologic Oncology, Associate Professor of Urology & Oncology at the Brady Urological Institute, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Md. I will try to relate some of my experiences. First let me congratulate you on passing your five-year mark; I am celebrating my five-month mark, having had my cancerous

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