Hi Guys,
I thought I should give you all an update on my situation.
After my TURBT I woke and my first thought was I need to visit the boys room PDQ. But the nurse assured me that was normal and I only felt like that because of the Catheter. So I started to look at what the situation was. There were two large 3 Litre bags of Saline on a stand like they use when your on a drip. The pipe from the bag disappeared under the rather fetching gown they had given me to wear. Also appearing from under the gown was the exhaust pipe and that disappeared over the side of the bed. I was in the recovery area for quite a while while they waited for my room to be cleaned. It turn out I was going to the "private wing" and the NHS where going to foot the bill. :-) After a while I plucked up the courage to check out the plumbing a bit more closely. Moving back he gown my first thought was "Oh that looks like a USB symbol." only much larger. Basically it was a unit to merged three pipes in to one. Once again I was quite supprised and wondered how on earth they could get something so large to fit.
The following day the Surgeon came in to see me telling me things had gone really well, but due the position of the tumour he was going to send me for a Pregnancy Ultra sound scan to check the passage from the kidneys to the Bladder. He also confirmed that by the looks of things i.e. the exhaust from the catheter. everything was going well and that they could remove said catheter and I could go home that afternoon.
Before leaving the ward I was given a beefing on what to watch for. If it the colour of Larger thats OK, If it's the Colour of Rose wine thats OK,
If it's the colour of Strawberry Jam thats bad and I should get myself to A&E. If it's like Blackcurrant Jam thats good it's just the scab coming out.
I should add at this point my partner had not really be paying attention to things and wondered why I could eat Blackcurrant Jam but not Strawberry Jam.
I had been warned that things might be a bit painful for a day or two. However that turned out to be more like three weeks. Never again will I use the phrase "A piece of Piss.".
I went to see the Nurse two and a half weeks later. She had the results of the biopsy. She explained that my tumour was pTa Grade 3. pTa means it's early stages non-invasive and from what I gather that's about a good as it gets. However, Grade 3 is not so good it means it can reappear. She couldn't tell me what the next move would be until after a meeting to discuss my case the following day. The options were go for another TURBT in a few weeks or go for BCG treatment followed by TURBT after that.
She phoned the next day to say I would be getting the BCG treatment. So I was pretty chuffed about that.
For those that don't know BCG is the Tuberculosis Vaccine. The treatment is having yet another tube poked up my intimate parts though thankfully this one is far more manageable. Then pumping about half a cup of BCG in. So my routine is every Friday morning a trip down to the Hospital for the treatment. I've had two treatments so far and no significant side effect though I'm told they do get worse each time. So you can get a temperature and flu like symptoms. I have four more to go this time. Then I get three months off followed by three more doses three month off then another three months after the forth lot it goes to six months that all goes on for three years.
The treatment works in seven out of ten case so I'm hoping I'm one of the seven.
I'm still upbeat about things. It's not life threatening nor do I have to change my way of life. On the day I first heard about the possibilities I went to a Dinner Dance in aid of Breast Cancer. The event was organised by a lady who had suffered from Breast Cancer and has the scar to prove it. I'm pleased to say she has now been given the All Clear. Compared to her I'm pretty fortunate I don't even have a scar.
t.
