Susan--
I'm probably about at more or less the same point you are in terms of bladder cancer, so can't really speak from years of experience. Maybe I'm overly optimistic (or self-delusional) but right now I truly believe I'm going to live a full and long life in spite of having bladder cancer (granted, I'm already 65, but I'm otherwise very healthy and have long-lived family members on both maternal and paternal sides). Not to play amateur psychologist, but I think one's personality (and support system) plays a role in how one reacts to cancer. All of us have times when we feel blue, angry, frustrated with having blc. But, my own way of coping with illness or other "bad" things happening in my life or my family's life is to try to cope with it and move on as if it wasn't there, at least on a day to day basis. Again, it's perhaps easier for me to do this as my cancer is (knock wood) the "best" kind of blc one can have.
My dad had blc in his early 70s (was a smoker), had one recurrence at some point, then was all clear until his death at age 84 from unrelated lung cancer. This was back in the days when the only treatment was TURBT. When I had my first tumor in 2006 (low grade, non invasive), I got it in my head that I was going to follow in my dad's footsteps. Therefore, I was really shocked (and mad) when I had a recurrence of two tiny (pinhead size) tumors at the 2-year point. I was more upset then than I ws at the time of the initial diagnosis. My uro has put me on the BCG protocol (6 weeks, just completed, no side effects), with maintenance therapy thereafter. I read all I could, and questioned whether I really needed BCG at this point for low grade tumors which hadn't showed up until 2 years after the initial tumor. I called my cousin, who is a research radiologist specializing in the urinary tract to ask him what he thought. He said that the BCG was not a bad idea now, as the new tumors were in different parts of the bladder, and neither was in the same place as the original one. He said, "What this shows is that your bladder lining wants to grow tumors." Both he and my uro refer to these low grade papillary tumors as "nuisance cancers."
Although I was initially hesitant about the BCG, my feeling right now is that if BCG can indeed slow up the rate of recurrence (so I won't need too many TURBTs in the near future) and if it reduces the likelihood of progression, I'm all for it. On the other hand, if my uro (like yours) had said "let's wait and see," after removing the two new tumors, I'd have been perfectly OK with that as well.
I guess my advice to you is to go with what your uro is recommending for now. If you have a recurrence in the near future (3 months, 6 months) or if a recurrence is different than what you've had (bigger, more tumors, different grade or stage) then definitely another course of action should be considered. I think there's some research that suggests that immediate TURBT or "zapping" may not be warranted for single small, low grade papillary tumors, but just "watchful waiting." (Repeated TURBTs and fulguration can do damage to the bladder, and possibly in the long run reduce the capacity to hold urine.)
Finally, helpful as this Website and forum are, I think you can get yourself overly worked up by reading about dire things happening to others. Those who are chugging along without invasive or metastatic cancer, not having recurrences, or getting an occasional recurrence and having it treated, are way less likely to be active participants on the forums. Statistics are in your favor (and mine), but it's much harder to relate to statistics than to personal stories; and certainly a number of the folks on this forum are living with (or have gone through) some pretty serious stuff.
Ann