Meeting Dr. H

Blizzard last night made an 8am meeting with Dr. Holzbeierlein a bit of challange! Okay, I met Dr. H and was very impressed.  I am committed to winning and keeping my sense of humor with this along the way. Cancer, smancher. Here's what I found out:

• The name of my cancer is Myxoid Leiomyosarcoma
• It is rare. There are only 18 documented cases of it and I'm only the second person to have it in the bladder
• The only treatment for this type of sarcoma is surgery
• The tumor is at the base of my bladder and aggressive
• The bladder, prostate and surrounding lymph nodes must be removed
• The good doctor will harvest 18 inches of my small intestine and create a new bladder, called a "neobladder" which will function as a normal bladder (so I won't have a urostomy)
• Check out a video of the making of a neobladder: www.kumedurology.com/uro_oncology.asp#bladder
• Dr. H is very confident that this will eliminate all of the cancer
• Once removed, there is an 85 - 90% likelihood that it won't return
• As a precaution, I will have a full bone scan and CT scan of my lungs next Monday (Jan. 11)
• Surgery is scheduled for Tuesday, January 19, 2010
• I will be in the hospital for 7 days
• I'll be laid up for 6 weeks total
• I'll lose 20-25 pounds. Score!
• I will have tubes, lots tubes coming out and going into my body for 2 weeks
• These tubes include all men's dream... the lovely catheter
• After 3 weeks I will be tube free and they will "activate" the neobladder
• This is a major surgery -- ranking up there with the most serious they perform. It should take 4 to 5 hours to complete

There is a long road to travel here and arriving at normalcy will take some months, but I'm looking forward to being cancer-free and getting on the road to recovery.