Radical Cystectomy in December

Wow. This has happened so quickly. I'm a 67-year-old male, soon to be 68, healthy as a horse, a horse with arthritis. In July my local urologist detected blood in a routine urine sample. He scheduled an August CT scan that detected 2 tumors about 1cm in size. He followed that with a camera check to verify this finding.

Surgery was then scheduled for October 4th. Tumors were removed but I was shocked he now says it was a 4cm tumor with 2 lesions. The biopsy came back as high grade but nothing in the muscle tissue in the scraping. He told me he got all the cancer and scheduled BCG treatments.

Getting a second opinion

In the meantime my oldest daughter suggested I get a second opinion at UVA cancer center, I would not have thought to do this, my urologist said he got it all.

My new urologist/oncologist at UVA got me in very quickly, right after my first BCG treatment.

I was again shocked when I looked at my appointments. He had scheduled for his appointment, a pre anesthesia appointment on Monday and another TURBT on Wednesday. I expected those would be canceled after my first visit and I got him up to date.

My daughter and doctor saved my life

Wow, was I wrong. He said their standard protocol for high grade is to do a second and scrape more muscle to ensure it was or was not muscle invasive. So, I had my second one done and bam, cancer in the muscle tissue. So the bladder is coming out. My daughter and new doctor have saved my life. I don't know why a second TURBT would not be standard procedure everywhere for a high grade diagnosis.

So, hopefully I can live a full normal life after removal. I'm very active. I play racquetball, ride bicycles, a motorcycle, camp and canoe. I have a very supportive wife, family and friends so i will get through this. I hope there are no or minimal changes going forward.

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