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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 guy I mentioned earlier thought my symptoms were due to an enlarged prostate and an overly vigorous sex life shared with my wife of twenty-five years. Certainly that would explain the two or three incidents of "red cool-aid" colored urine and the sudden urgent need to urinate - so urgent that on several occasions while stuck in traffic or otherwise too far away from a men's room "accidents happened" and causing me to finally believe something really might be wrong. However, given the never ending stream of enlarged prostate and "gotta go" commercials on the tube I was inclined to agree with Dr. X.  No big deal!   To be safe he ordered a CT scan and urine cytology the results of which led to meeting Dr. Dato and the news.

 Six days later I was in the hospital awaiting my first TUR (Trans Urethral Resection - a procedure that must be experienced to imagine). Dr. Dato opted to keep me in the hospital overnight pending the pathological result and later in the afternoon stopped in to check his patient. I was told the tumor was much larger (6-8 CM) than expected and that during the procedure I bled to the extent that he had to stop before obtaining all the test tissue he wanted but was sure had destroyed the ugly mushroom growing inside me. As you can imagine, I was exceedingly relieved and slept well for the first time in over week.  Early the next morning there was Dr. Dato again wearing his full doctor garb and a huge smile.  My little friend was a Ta Stage I noninvasive papillary carcinoma and I felt I dodged a bullet and was ready to put this all behind me, or so I thought.

September 6, 2007 I was scheduled to see Dr. Data for my first follow-up.  For nearly three months I was symptom free and looking forward to a clean bill of health.  In fact I felt great!  The experience caused me to re-examine priorities and attitudes leading me to consider the entire ordeal a blessing - a second (read one-hundredth and second) chance given to by God and my Savior Jesus Christ.  Unfortunately the news would require fortitude and a great deal of faith - the tumor was back and we need to schedule TUR number two. I will spare you the details and get into after treatment and family experiences  in my next post.

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