Hello everyone – My mom who's 48 yrs. old was diagnosed with Urinary Bladder Cancer last Friday. We found out that the tumors have invaded the bladder wall and was told by our urologist that my mom's bladder will have to be removed. Since then she has been referred by our Urologist to another Urologist in UCLA who specializes in performing Neobladder surgery. After speaking with this specialist, my mother was give 2 options: 1) to perform chemo and radiation therapy, since the tumors were all contained in the bladder, and try to shrink the tumors to a size where it's possible to be removed. OR 2) To have a neobladder surgery.

 I have read several patients in this blog who have gone thru the neobladder surgery, but wanted to know:

1) If you were given the choice which one would you go with and why.

The specialist informed my mom that since she is young, he thinks it's better to go with the bladder surgery. But since being given the 2 options, my mom started having second thoughts because it is a big surgery and her thinking is IF she can save her bladder why not? Plus, she's diabetic, so her other concern is complications that can arise due to this. I'm really confused since all i want to do is get this tumor removed asap and I feel that chemo & radition is just prolonging the entire procedure. Also, since reading other blogs, it seems that those that tend to  go with the chemo/radiation are ones with either 1) Smaller tumors that have not spread that are contained in one area of the bladder or 2) older patients that may not have ability and the strength to go thru with such big surgery.

 I just wanted to check with all the patients here so I can be sure that I am a bit more sensitive to my mom's feelings. It's harder since I'm not the one going thru this, but at the same time, I feel the surgery is a much better decision.

 One last thing, she's been going thru extreme pain lately (I caught her crying right after peeing a couple of times) and my mom's a tough cookie, so when she cries, i know that it's extremely painful. The doctor perscribed her some vicodin (5-500mg) for the pain, and so my next question is: Is this the only way to get rid of the pain and 2) Would it be harmful for her to get a higher dose? I wanted to ask the doctor directly, but she doesn't want me to since she thinks it can damage her liver. I'm just at a lost, cause it's hard to see her in soo much pain and wanted to know if there are any other alternatives to relieve her, at least until the surgery.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for reading this. Your comments will be very much appreciated!