Member Blogs

  

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

Comment (6) Read More...

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.

Comment (4) Read More...

I heaven't posted here in awhile so I decided to update my story.  In October of 2007 I found out that I was pregnant for the fourth time (oops)!  One of the first phone calls I made was to the urologist.  I was due for a scope in Dec but he felt we should wait until I was well into my second trimester.  I just had a cysto last week.  The procedure was uncomfortable as always.  Everything looked good Thank God!  I did experience a lot of cramping after the procedure.  He asked my obstetrician to do a UA at each appointment and decided not to scope me again unless there is hematuria for the

Comment (1) Read More...

I just had my one year all clear cysto yesterday!  We are going to continue with a cysto every three months for the next year.  The uro told me that I have about a 60% chance of reoccurance and less than a 20% chance that if the cancer comes back it would become invasive. For now everything looks good!

Comment (2) Read More...

Here is my story.  I first saw blood in my urine when I was 20.  I was treated for a UTI and the bleeding stopped.  I continued to get re-occurent bladder infections for the following five years.  I am not sure if I ever had infections now or not.  In April of '06 I had an ultrasound to measure the development of my baby who was measuring small.  I had to drink a lot of water to fill my bladder.  The ultrasound was extremely painful.  I went home and peed what looked like cranberry juice.  At all of my following prenatal and post partum visits I had microscopic hematuria which was never even

Comment (1) Read More...

Well, I've been thru two of the BCG treatments so far and haven't had many issues.  Some pain while urinating and some general aches the following day, but nothing worse then a mild flu.  I did have some headaches after the first treatment, but I think that was from nerves about the whole thing.  The catheter for installing the BCG is no worse then getting a three month scope.  Four more to go, and hopefully those little tumors will be held at bay for a while.......:)

Comment (7) Read More...

Latest Update

This is the review of my pathology from the cystoscopy and biopsies taken on 14 July:

The slides have been reviewed in conjunction with Dr R Cohen. he agrees that the urothelium shows atypia which is focally full thickness with scattered mitotic activity. There is not the typical marked nuclear enlargement and hyperchromasia usually associated with carcinoma in-situ, however, the features in the current biopsy represent at least low grade dysplasia and follow up is recommended if clinically indicated.

Conclusion:

Bladder - dysplasia, which is of at least low grade and warrants

Comment (1) Read More...

Hello everyone.

I thought it might be time to start recording here my experiences with this disease, before too much time goes by, and so I have as fresh and accurate a baseline as possible to come back to, myself, for reference.

I served 21 years in the USMC, retired to San Diego where my wife completed her doctorate in clinical psychology, and then we moved to our current home in Istanbul, Turkey, where she was born. I lived a life of clean habits and pure thoughts characteristic of the typical US Marine infantryman, with the exception that I smoked cigarettes - heavily. Probably 2-3

Comment (0) Read More...

I found this web forum which I think its a great place where to share our concerns about bladder cancer. We are both argentines, living in Argentina. My husband, Carlos, now 57, was diagnosed with bc five years ago, very low grade and superficial (excuse my english). After many recurances and resecctions we are still fighting this battle. He was under BCG instilations but with no success except that it didnt change the pathology. After the last TUR his urologist recomended to change to Mytomicin. He had his check up done today and it came out with only three very little tumors, which were

Comment (0) Read More...

I am newly diagnosed with Bladder CA albeit low grade although I don't know much about the grading. I have learned heaps already by reading tales from the trenches and lots of background info on this site. I had bowel CA 10 years ago which was cured by surgery and chemo with no recurrences to date (touch wood). I have a gene mutation which predisposes me to bowel CA so hoping this does not reoccur. Every year I have a whole series of tests to make sure any recurrence is detected early and treated.

Last September one of these tests (urine) proved positive to an abnormality in the bladder and

Comment (1) Read More...