One Year – Almost
January 15, 2013 is when I went in for my surgery.
Hard to believe it’s been a whole year (358 days really) since I was surgically “enhanced” with my neobladder. If you’ve been following the posts since I put this site up you know it’s been good and it’s been not as good. I can’t say it’s been bad because I read about other people and their experiences with bladder cancer and I can truly tell you – I’ve had a dream recovery.
Everything is working like it should I’m 97.34% back to normal.
And – oh yeah – got my CAT scan back yesterday and I’m … wait for it… ALL CLEAR!
3 for 3 on the all clear CAT scan front. According to the Doc I now graduate to the big boy 6-month CAT scan. If I pass the next two of those then I’m on the one year rotation. That’s is all good.
I wish I could leave it at that. I wish I could sign off for 6 months, tell you I’ll let you know how things go in June, and you can go back to worrying about the weather (I hear it’s cold out there right now.) But I can’t.
There are some other issues that came up over the past few weeks. For those that care below is more info – nothing horrible or life threatening – just interesting.
But – I’ve been pretty open and blunt on this site so far, so why stop now.
The Rest of the Story…#1
Blood levels are a bit off. Creatinine is higher than he likes. Creatinine is an indicator of how well your kidneys are functioning. He believes it could be more of a hydration issue but wants to keep an eye on it. Also, said I had slight acidosis (acidic urine)- again – nothing too worrisome. The Doc indicated that it is common with the neobladder and prescribed a bicarbonate to address.
The Rest of the Story…#2
About three weeks ago I thought things felt “funny” – not funny ha-ha (rarely do they feel that way when you’re dealing with cancer.) I didn’t think I was getting enough out of the neobladder- like things were backing up a bit. That can be a problem if you don’t empty completely and there isn’t really a good way to know since you can’t feel whether you’re full or empty. The only way to really know is to catheterize and see if anything comes out. If a lot comes out you’re not doing the job – if only a little comes out you’re good to go. So I did the catheter and only a little came out so I felt pretty good and went on my merry way.
However, the next time I went to the bathroom there was some blood – enough to really make it red. And then again the next time I went. Well – you all know that blood is not a good thing and could be an infection – or – it could be I just nicked something during the catheterization and that it will all go away – no harm no foul. I went to the local urgent care and they said no infection was indicated. They put me on an antibiotic to be sure and was told it was “probably trauma from the catheter.” One more pee – still more blood. Next pee – all clear. Been clear since then and no other issues.
Fast forward to yesterday – talking with Doc about the CAT scan – all clear … but…
Due to the blood in my urine he wants to do a cystoscopy in few weeks and take a peek. Since it is easy to do – a relatively minor inconvenience (yeah – read about my last one here) – he said – why not? Although not a fan of the cysto – I agree. Let’s just double check things and make sure.
Scheduled the cysto for the end of the month. I’ll light up the blog when I get the results.
So there ya have it – not just a simple update. Although the CAT scan said – no evidence of metastatic disease – there are a few outstanding issues to deal with and I’ll keep you in the loop on those.
Onward and upward!