Back on the emotional roller coaster again. After talking with the nurse today I reviewed all of the reports again because despite her telling me that the doc said the bladder mass was outside the bladder, I thought I remembered it being INSIDE and guess what? It is inside! I will call again tomorrow and "remind" them of this fact and see if it changes the docs approach. No, Rosemary, she isn't scheduled for another scope until July which will be 3 1/2 months after her TURB. The doc today told my mom to relax that she is going to be just fine and that this other stuff is not bc, and of course my mom wants to believe that, but I cannot rest in that opinion until someone can say what this other thing in the bladder is! We are on our second doc at Sloan and I know they are experts in their field, but if they are misreading the facts in the reports (thinking it is outside rather than inside and low grade rather than high grade), how can we rely on the opinions they form? My mom really wants to go ahead with the BCG and I know she wants to think these other masses are nothing, but three studies (CT scan, ultrasound and MRI) have shown a mass in the bladder on the posterior wall and just outside the bladder in the same area there is a mass -- am I crazy to worry that it may be bc????!!! I am not an alarmist, and I do not have a medical degree, but doesn't that seem like a plausible possibility? I just do not want to hear in July that this was cancer and it in invasive. If it is I want to know that now!
My mom was planning on doing her BCG treatments locally so I am thinking that perhaps we should set up an appointment with that uro and see what he thinks about all this? Of course he is not affiliated with a major cancer center, and he is rather young so I question how much he has seen, but I do not know what else to do. I would like to take my mom down to Johns Hopkins, but I know she won't go for that. Her doc told her today she needs to start the BCG for peace of mind as much as anything else and my mom agrees.
What should take priority here? Biopsy or BCG? Also, what if she has the needle biopsy and it turns out to bc and she has started the treatment (which she can do in conjunction with needle biopsy) would she have to delay any surgery because of the BCG in her system? Her first uro said she needed to wait six weeks after BCG before a scope -- does that mean she would have to wait six weeks before surgery too? I'd appreciate any guidance you can give.
Kim