I was actually in the hospital for two solid weeks after my surgery, so I would recommend you give yourself a bit more wiggle room than ten days. I had complications, and I certainly hope you don't, but you don't want to be in the position of having to deal with rescheduling flights from the hospital. Why don't you call the airline and tell them about the situation? They may be able to give you a little more flexibility-- you are giving them a fair amount of notice, after all.
Please tell me someone is traveling with you for your surgery and recovery. I'm a pretty tough person, but this is NOT a situation to be on your own in. I'm not being alarmist-- there are just SO many reasons to have someone with you that I can't even count them here.
Regarding the "two weeks," the main reason I say that's the worst is that abdominal surgery just makes you weak as hell (pardon my language), because your core muscles have been messed with. You seriously may find it tough to just get up and down from a chair, out of bed, etc. It's weakness and soreness rather than pain, though I won't lie to you, there's pain at first-- but any acute (like, HOLY SH*T SOMEBODY GIVE ME SOME MORPHINE pain) should be gone within a few days, while you're still at the hospital.
Nothing against this website, but there is a much more active bladder support survivors network over at
www.inspire.com/groups/bladder-cancer-advocacy-network/ that I highly recommend. There are people there who have been living post-RC for years with pouches, IP's, you name it, and I found it took away a lot of my anxiety just to browse people's stories. You might want to wait until after your surgery, though, because there's so much info that it can be a bit overwhelming.
Let me tell you something someone shared on that site that has stayed with me: radical cystectomy (RC), the surgery you're about to have, is the CURE for bladder cancer. You will NEVER have bladder cancer again. You'll be weak for a little while and have to practice a new way of going to the bathroom-- that's all. Remember that! Big picture!
Don't let those statistics frighten you. They scared the hell out of me when I first read them, but they're not accurate to our situation. When you feel like visiting the site above, you will see that recurrence seems to always be around the next corner when people perhaps had just a small tumor and *kept* their bladders-- they tried to control the cancer with just chemo/radiation and tumor removal, hoping it wouldn't come back. Sometimes they got bad advice, sometimes they themselves made bad decisions, sometimes it was just plain bad luck. But the sad thing is that some of them were so weak from the drugs by the time they finally decided to do RC that their bodies couldn't take it. The complications and side effects were too much after being just plain *sick* for so long. And (whispering)
they are sick for the rest of their lives.
(I wouldn't mention that to people on that site who *are* trying to resist RC, by the way. That's why I say that you should only go to that site if you're ready to hear every possible variation on this experience: seriously, some people there are adamantly against even chemo, and think they're going to cure themselves with raw food and meditation, so if you're not feeling good about your treatment it could make you feel worse!)
Sorry to be so long-winded, but I very much identify with your situation and want you to feel good about your future. I am e-mailing you with my phone number in case you want to call me, because otherwise I'll go on and on and on...
Take care,
Beth
