I’ve posted bits and pieces of "My Story" around the story board, but am home today after a colonoscopy, which went pretty well, so I thought I would add my story here, as it is sometimes interesting to discuss variables about our disease and treatment amongst ourselves…
First off, I believe that I’ve had this disease a while. About 8 yrs ago, my toilet was full of blood….I went to Doc who sent me to Uro who catherized me and said, "It’s not your bladder"
So, when I went for yearly pap this past December, my Gyno said, "You have blood in your urine, I’m sending you to Uro", I said, "I’ve been through this before and the Uro says it’s not my bladder." Gyno says, "I’ll catherize in a week, if the blood is still there, you’re going to Uro.’ Okay, I says…
The Uro story….
First report from Uro: Cytology of urine….phone call from doc…no cancer cells…Yahoo!
Next the kidney and bladder scan….no stones…the sonogram tech dumped me in the middle of the exam and said, "The cystoscopy is a better test"..
Tumor found…the following report will catch you up from this point…
Local Uro sends me to Urology Cancer Center University of North Carolina…
Here is the update from Urology Dept of the University of North Carolina;
April 27, 2006
HISTORY OF PRESENT ILLNESS:
The patient is a 53-year old female with a history of hematuria and urine cytologies, which are negative, who recently underwent evaluation in January of this year and was noted to have a bladder tumor for which she underwent transurethral resection of the bladder revealing a papillary low-grade tumor .
She underwent repeat transurethral resection. Of note, this was all Ta grade 1 disease. She received postoperative mitomycin therapy, underwent repeat transurethral resection in 3/2006. With small amount of residual tumor, underwent transurethral resection of this area. No muscle was in the specimen. This was predominantly a low-grade tumor with a focal area of high-grade disease. This was adjacent to the right ureteral orifice. She underwent a ureteroscopy also, which was negative. She now presents for evaluation of her T1 focally high-grade urothelial carcinoma. Feeling well. No dysuria, no bony pain, weight loss or other somatic complaints. She has not had any other CT imaging or other evaluation.
Biopsy scheduled at UNC hospital to determine my chances of sparing the bladder
PATHOLOGY:
Diagnosis:
A: Bladder, right lateral wall, biopsy
-Bladder mucosa with biopsy site changes consisting of granulomas and granulation tissue with surrounding benign urothelium with cystitis cystica, no tumor seen.
– No muscualris propria is present in this specimen
B: Bladder, left posterior wall, biopsy.
-Bladder mucosa with biopsy site changes consisting of granulomas and granulation tissue and surrounding benign urothelium, no tumor seen
-No muscularis propria is present in this specimen.
CT SCAN:
FINDINGS: The visualized lung..(.gallbladder, liver etc, etc). are unremarkable. There is no hydronephrosis bilaterally. There is a wall thickening of 1.0 centimeters in the right posterolateral aspect of the bladder
with well preserved perivesicle fat plane between the bladder and the vaginal wall. There are scattered subcentimeter retroperitoneal lymph nodes, not enlarged by size criteria. There is no pelvic mass. The uterus is unremarkable…..ovaries…no suspicious appearing osseous lesions are noted.
IMPRESSION:
There is a 1.0 centimeter wall thickening in the right posterolateral aspect of the bladder without evidence of hydronephrosis. The fat plane between the bladder and the vagina is preserved. This is consistent with the patient’s history of bladder carcinoma…
OFF TO THE LOCAL DOC FOR BCG’s x 6…
BCG’S behind me and the next peek is in August…
Thanks for listening…I know it’s long…. :-XHope that sharing this info can be helpful to someone else going through this…
