Thanks Carol!
I'm struggling right now because of the pain. I'm on pain meds that help, but the reality is when I urinate it's very painful.
I write software and I'm trying to work but it's extremely difficult to focus while in so much pain and with the constant necessity to go to the bathroom.
I'm at the point I'm considering getting adult diapers so I can remain at my desk. I never thought I'd say that, especially while in my 40s.
The Cysto my urologist did of course "inflated" my bladder with solution while he looked around. The result of this (while being very painful at the time) has been a lot more bleeding and pain.
So I'll not be getting Mitomycin any more. If my cancer comes back, I'll not get it and we'll have to see where we go from there. My Urologist is not a fan of BCG because of the side effects. He basically wants to put it off as long as possible because, as he puts in, in his 20 years of being a urologist he's seen BCG destroy a great number of his patients' lives in various ways.
I'm getting up at night at 4 to 6 times, sometimes more, now. I'm desperate for sleep, and that's not helping my productivity either.
I will press through, though. There are no other options but to get through it.
We discussed the mitomycin and how it is designed to kill cells. That is how it is supposed to help recurrence. In my case, it killed a *lot* of cells, burning away the inside of my bladder.
I'm choosing to think that that means it did an "extra good" job on me; I'm suffering for it, but that it killed all the cells that might have turned into cancer. I'm choosing to think it happened for a reason.