High grade non-invasive bladder cancer

I had an invasive tumour and my bladder removed 3 years ago and have done well since. I'm now 3 years younger than your partner. One of my guiding principles throughout this journey is quality of life, although I also make sure to bring my family along mentally with me and my decisions. 

Your partner has had a lot of 'work' done and it sounds as if she has made her choice about this point in conjunction with the doctor. I can see you are worried about whether things will get worse meanwhile. But nobody ever knows that definitely. Also having general anesthesia can leave one feeling very tired.

Having to support a patient is hard, especially when one may not be sure they have made the right choice. I think in your situation (and some years ago I was facing something similar with my husband) I would try to take comfort from the fact that in 2 months or so you will find out more. And she may then decide on treatment. I think perhaps you might spend this waiting time doing things together that give you both pleasure and which help her feel better about things.

Hope this helps,

Latestart

It does help and thank you for taking the time to write. My partner and I are very much aligned concerning quality of life. In those two months we are actually going away to a place we used to go to every summer, but were unable to for the last two, just like you suggest. I think my biggest worry at this moment is that she’s now not able to take BCG and I am thinking too much about what then would happen instead. Thank you again and hoping you continue to do well.

What a difficult situation. I can understand that your partner just wants a break for a while, but a biopsy is usually a simple process and recovery relatively quick. If it is CIS, that can grow fast, so I can see why the doctors want to check. If it becomes muscle invasive, then treatment would need to be more aggressive than BCG. You don't say if they think the kidney tumour was related or not? 

Of course the decision has to be hers and that's hard for loved ones who might prefer an alternative route. Hope you can spend the time happily and helping her get fitter. Best wishes.

Thank you for your reply and best wishes. The surgeon suspected that the kidney was the origin of the bladder cancer, but wasn’t certain. The problem that she had with the BCG maintenance following surgery was that it caused severe joint inflammation, which was referred to as reactive arthritis and it was sudden and very dramatic. BCG treatments prior to that were unpleasant of course, but didn’t cause such a reaction.

I have had osteoarthritis for years and learnt to bear it but a sudden big flare up must have been frightening for you both. I hope they calmed it  down and that there is a possible response planned if it should happen again.

All the best,

Latestart

Maybe talk with the team