amicus
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2003
- Posts
- 14,812
This is not a thread for congratulations or sympathy; I will assume the good wishes of any and all.
I write this and offer it publically in the hope that others so afflicted might find solace and comfort in your battles.
My particular brand is Bladder Cancer; a surprise to me, as if anything, after fifty years of two pack a day smoking, I expected lung cancer or throat cancer and in my profession, radio and television, I stressed my vocal cords constantly.
During the past four years of treatment, being who I am, I researched the causes and treatment of bladder cancer and discovered that smoking is not the only cause and perhaps not even the primary one.
Unless you have an annual full range physical examination, which I did while serving in the military, then early bladder cancer can't be detected.
It is only when you begin to notice blood in your urine that the alarm bells begin ringing.
After a divorce, I spent twenty years chasing kids from Washington to Oregon, to California, to Mississippi, to Arkansas, Georgia and North Carolina, taking any job I could find to be near my children. During those times, I worked in hazardous jobs, a Nuclear Plant, Fibreglass factory and construction crews where I inhaled a variety of toxic fumes, dust and dirt and whatnot.
Bladder cancer affects both men and women, but mostly men, and begins to occur when you reach 60 years of age...the research doesn't say why it appears at that age...but hell, don't get old, there ain't no future in it!
This may gross you out and I apologize for that, but the earlier you have it done, the better your chance of survival.
Something called a Fowley Catheter, if I recall, I recommend the French 16mm, about a quarter inch in diameter, is inserted into the Penis, for a male, I have no idea how it works for the ladies, and a video camera is inserted to look into the bladder itself.
I tried that once without anethesia, then I had them put me under for the following nine procedures; it is not a fun thing to undergo.
If cancerous growth is observed, laser technology is used to burn away the lesions, if they have not penetrated the bladder wall.
It is called a 'Syscoscopy', which took me two years to learn how to pronounce without stuttering, 'Sysco' for short.
This is an 'outpatient' procedure, but if you are under anesthesia, you are not permitted to drive for 24 hours, so you need someone for transportation.
Of course, your Urologist and your Primary Care Physician will lecture you about smoking and drinking and having any kind of fun at all...ignore them.
There is more....after such a procedure, the 'sysco', you will be blessed wear a catheter and a urine bag, two sizes, one for daytime, a larger one for overnight, and, you may figure it out, you can only sleep on your back and hope you don't toss and turn enough to give a 'yank' on that ten inches of quarter inch tubing hanging over the side of the bed.
You wear that for a week to ten days and take all the anti-biotics prescribed and then return to the doctor's office for the fun part....pulling that tube out. It stays in because a small balloon is expanded in the bladder to keep it in.
I recall my first 'removal' of the catheter...I was understandable a bit concerned because it really did feel all that good just having that device inside me....but before I could express my anxiety, the Doc, yanked it out and smiled.
Argh...said I, several times.
I went through two years of that, every three months, and each time, new cancerous growths were detected and removed. I might add, that after wearing the catheter for a period of time, where you urinate continuosly, you have to learn all over again how to go pee...when the urge arrives...not fun.
None of that worked, they found more cancer each time. Somewhere last Spring, they started me on what they called a BCG infusion, once a week for six weeks, a month off, then three more weeks.
You can look it up, but BCG is the infustion of active Tuberculosis into the bladder, that causes your immune system to rise up and fight like hell to expell the foreign threat. I have no idea what contractions feels like for a woman giving birth, but, after about an hour, you are in a hospital bed and must turn every fifteen minutes, one quarter of the way around, back, side, front, side, for two hours...after an hour, the gut wrenching contractions or seizures, begin, and the attending physican or nurse, must release the pressure and allow the infusion to be passed....
Did that...over a period of two months last spring, had another 'sysco' a couple months later and....there was still cancerous growths...which were removed yet again without damage to the walls of the bladder.
That was a real low point for me...after all that pain, week after week and then to find out I still had the cancer.
My next 'sysco' a look inside to see what's there, was the first week of October, about a month ago...no cancer!
The next one is sometime in late February or March, but I still haven't mentally recovered from the past three years and that thing I do....ahm, writing, has happened only on this forum...the fiction just won't flow and I have five novels and a book of poetry screaming at me every day.
Gentlemen...if you are of the age I indicated, bite the bullet, go to an Urologist and tell them you want a Syscoscopy. I wasn't that smart. I waited, hoping it would go away until one night I could not pass urine and some poor little 26 year old girl at the emergency room had to force a catheter in to drain over 1200cc's of really goopy junk.
I was in the hospital for four days and had two units of blood transfused. I snet that little girl a dozen roses...she was in tears at the pain she was causing....
I am not an open, sharing person, so this is somewhat of a first for me and I repeat, congratulations and sympathy is not the intent of this, but I hope that perhaps someone, a smoker or one who has worked in polluted areas, inhaling toxic dust and fumes, may take heed and avoid what I have gone through.
I always learn the hard way. heh.
I remain:
Amicus
I write this and offer it publically in the hope that others so afflicted might find solace and comfort in your battles.
My particular brand is Bladder Cancer; a surprise to me, as if anything, after fifty years of two pack a day smoking, I expected lung cancer or throat cancer and in my profession, radio and television, I stressed my vocal cords constantly.
During the past four years of treatment, being who I am, I researched the causes and treatment of bladder cancer and discovered that smoking is not the only cause and perhaps not even the primary one.
Unless you have an annual full range physical examination, which I did while serving in the military, then early bladder cancer can't be detected.
It is only when you begin to notice blood in your urine that the alarm bells begin ringing.
After a divorce, I spent twenty years chasing kids from Washington to Oregon, to California, to Mississippi, to Arkansas, Georgia and North Carolina, taking any job I could find to be near my children. During those times, I worked in hazardous jobs, a Nuclear Plant, Fibreglass factory and construction crews where I inhaled a variety of toxic fumes, dust and dirt and whatnot.
Bladder cancer affects both men and women, but mostly men, and begins to occur when you reach 60 years of age...the research doesn't say why it appears at that age...but hell, don't get old, there ain't no future in it!
This may gross you out and I apologize for that, but the earlier you have it done, the better your chance of survival.
Something called a Fowley Catheter, if I recall, I recommend the French 16mm, about a quarter inch in diameter, is inserted into the Penis, for a male, I have no idea how it works for the ladies, and a video camera is inserted to look into the bladder itself.
I tried that once without anethesia, then I had them put me under for the following nine procedures; it is not a fun thing to undergo.
If cancerous growth is observed, laser technology is used to burn away the lesions, if they have not penetrated the bladder wall.
It is called a 'Syscoscopy', which took me two years to learn how to pronounce without stuttering, 'Sysco' for short.
This is an 'outpatient' procedure, but if you are under anesthesia, you are not permitted to drive for 24 hours, so you need someone for transportation.
Of course, your Urologist and your Primary Care Physician will lecture you about smoking and drinking and having any kind of fun at all...ignore them.
There is more....after such a procedure, the 'sysco', you will be blessed wear a catheter and a urine bag, two sizes, one for daytime, a larger one for overnight, and, you may figure it out, you can only sleep on your back and hope you don't toss and turn enough to give a 'yank' on that ten inches of quarter inch tubing hanging over the side of the bed.
You wear that for a week to ten days and take all the anti-biotics prescribed and then return to the doctor's office for the fun part....pulling that tube out. It stays in because a small balloon is expanded in the bladder to keep it in.
I recall my first 'removal' of the catheter...I was understandable a bit concerned because it really did feel all that good just having that device inside me....but before I could express my anxiety, the Doc, yanked it out and smiled.
Argh...said I, several times.
I went through two years of that, every three months, and each time, new cancerous growths were detected and removed. I might add, that after wearing the catheter for a period of time, where you urinate continuosly, you have to learn all over again how to go pee...when the urge arrives...not fun.
None of that worked, they found more cancer each time. Somewhere last Spring, they started me on what they called a BCG infusion, once a week for six weeks, a month off, then three more weeks.
You can look it up, but BCG is the infustion of active Tuberculosis into the bladder, that causes your immune system to rise up and fight like hell to expell the foreign threat. I have no idea what contractions feels like for a woman giving birth, but, after about an hour, you are in a hospital bed and must turn every fifteen minutes, one quarter of the way around, back, side, front, side, for two hours...after an hour, the gut wrenching contractions or seizures, begin, and the attending physican or nurse, must release the pressure and allow the infusion to be passed....
Did that...over a period of two months last spring, had another 'sysco' a couple months later and....there was still cancerous growths...which were removed yet again without damage to the walls of the bladder.
That was a real low point for me...after all that pain, week after week and then to find out I still had the cancer.
My next 'sysco' a look inside to see what's there, was the first week of October, about a month ago...no cancer!
The next one is sometime in late February or March, but I still haven't mentally recovered from the past three years and that thing I do....ahm, writing, has happened only on this forum...the fiction just won't flow and I have five novels and a book of poetry screaming at me every day.
Gentlemen...if you are of the age I indicated, bite the bullet, go to an Urologist and tell them you want a Syscoscopy. I wasn't that smart. I waited, hoping it would go away until one night I could not pass urine and some poor little 26 year old girl at the emergency room had to force a catheter in to drain over 1200cc's of really goopy junk.
I was in the hospital for four days and had two units of blood transfused. I snet that little girl a dozen roses...she was in tears at the pain she was causing....
I am not an open, sharing person, so this is somewhat of a first for me and I repeat, congratulations and sympathy is not the intent of this, but I hope that perhaps someone, a smoker or one who has worked in polluted areas, inhaling toxic dust and fumes, may take heed and avoid what I have gone through.
I always learn the hard way. heh.
I remain:
Amicus
