Living with Bladder Cancer

I am a 58 year old man living in Colorado, USA. Last summer, I began to develop minor “waterworks” problems: some trouble peeing after a beer or two.

I had my medical checkup in November, and my doctor found blood in my urine. He prescribed antibiotics and referred me to an urologist. The urologist did some more tests and gave me a bit of time to see how the antibiotics worked.

Blood became visible and the urologist tried to take a look inside my bladder. I threw a spasm when the camera went in and the urologist could not make anything out.

A few days later, I was put under anesthetic and checked again: an aggressive tumor was found and removed and biopsies were taken. Bladder cancer 3 weeks after the tumor removal, I had a radical cystectomy: removal of bladder and prostrate.

When the bladder is removed, something needs to be done to replace the function. I was offered 3 options:
1. Artificial bag outside the body.
2. Artificial bag inside the body.
3. Natural bag inside the body.
Naturally, I liked option 3. I did some research, and may not have got all the details right, but I had the surgery a week ago and this is what I think has happened.

A loop was put in my lower digestive tract. Some sewing and cutting was done to separate the loop into 2 parts:
1. A “short cut” through which solid wastes pass on their way to my anus.
2. An “isolated loop%u2019, through which solid waste no longer passes. The “pipes” from the kidneys that used to go to the bladder are sewn to the top of the loop. The bottom of the loop is sewn to where the bladder used to connect: in a man, the “top” or “inside” of the penis.

Both items are living tissue: maybe even muscle with blood flow and nerves. Currently (for 10 days after surgery), the loop is dry: stints are used to divert the urine to bags outside the body. After that, the stints will be removed and urine will be allowed into the loop. However, for a week, the urine will exit to a bag via a penis catheter. At the end of that week (about 2 weeks after surgery, all pipes and bags will be removed and a nearly normal “bladder” function will take place. I think the loop is a bit smaller than the bladder. Also, the loop has digestive tract nerves, so when I want to pee, it will feel like I have gas.

I am now one week after surgery and recovery is going really well. Pain levels are down, therapy is under way. Investigation of the removed bladder shows that is was full of cancer but the cancer had not gotten out. Samples from neighboring organs are all clean: it looks like I am going to be a successful cancer survivor! I am about 5 days from discharge, when I switch from stints to catheter. There are also 20 staples to come out.

There is a 50% chance of impotency. Without the surgery, it would have soon gone to 100%, round about when my heart stopped beating. There are treatments for impotency, but not for being dead… I still have to see how this works out, plus, without a prostrate gland, I have to get used to something called a “dry orgasm%u2019.

I am feeling highly confident, really grateful for the work done by the surgical team and support of family and friends. The surgery options have been surprisingly friendly. I think the biggest problem I had was denial after the tumor was found. However, I fixed that by saying the word “cancer”to myself at least once a minute until I believed it.

Hope this helps someone…