Bladder cancer brought on by antirejection drugs following 2 transplants.
My father has dealt with serious health problems for longer than I’ve been alive. The first problem was Type 1 diabetes, but the beginning of this story is kidney failure in the early 90s, along with a myriad of other issues, CMV, P-ANCA, misdiagnoses, etc. He underwent the first transplant in 1997. He received a kidney and a pancreas. The surgery was successful, the pancreas took immediately, the kidney took but failed after a year. For a year after that, he was a dialysis patient. In Aug 1999, he received my kidney and enjoyed the best health in at least 10 years. Last June (2002), he was diagnosed with bladder cancer brought on by the antirejection drugs. He had several rounds of localized chemotherapy, received another misdiagnosis of secondary bone cancer in January of this year, and now the cancer has spread to the prostate and possibly the lymph node. Radiation therapy and general chemotherapy have been refused because of the serious threat to the kidney. He refuses to go back to dialysis. Today we are still waiting to find out if surgery to remove the bladder and prostate will be possible. His doctors suspect that the cancer has spread to the lymph node. If this is true, then surgery will not happen and he will be sent home to wait for the inevitable. If it has not spread to the lymph node, then surgery is possible, and he might even beat this monster. Is there anyone out there who has experienced this? These circumstances seem so unique (to me) that I can’t seem to find good information that really fits what I’m seeing. Good luck and good health to all the other people who have posted on this board. Thanks.