Join now

Already a member? Sign in

Welcome to Inspire!

What - Inspire is a place where you can connect with people who share your health concerns and find information and advice in groups sponsored by organizations you know and trust.

Why - As a member you can use Inspire to let friends and family know how you're doing, contact others who share your health concerns, receive personalized updates and information about participating in surveys and clinical trials, and more.

How - Joining Inspire is completely free and usually takes less than a minute. Join now!

corner corner corner

A couple bad days

0 Recommendations

Some of you may know I had a failed RC. I still have my bladder although it's not used by my body. Monday afternoon around 1 PM I started having painful spasms and the overwhelming feeling that I had to go. I went to the toilet and there was a substantial fluid discharge from my penis that looked like mostly blood and tissue or clots. This went on for most of the afternoon with a frequency of about 45 minutes to an hour between these discharges with the amount of fluid being between 2 to 6 or 8 ounces perhaps. At 4 I called the cancer center where I received btreatments and spoke to a doctor. He said that while I could go to the ER, there probably wouldn't be much they could do, and to try and wait it out until morning and be seen by doctors at the cancer center. This made sense to me because I hate the long waits at emergency rooms as well as the fact that sometimes I'm not even seen by a doctor for several hours if at all. This went on all evening and by midnight I could notice the discharges becoming much more frequent and heavier. I was getting kind of scared at the amount of blood I might be losing so I made the decision to take my chances at the ER so I called someone to come stay with my daughter. The wait there was a couple hours and they did blood work and took urine for a culture. After he got the blood work back the doctor said all my levels were acceptable so I was relieved that the blood loss wasn't as bad as I thought. I had just finished up a 10 day cipro prescription for a kidney infection and he also informed me that the infection wasn't gone and that was very likely behind the bleeding and discharges as well as a flare up of my lymphedema in the past week or so. He said he wanted to watch the urine culture over a 2 day period and prescribed another antibiotic, bactrim, for the interim, saying he might change that to a more specific antibiotic Thursday. I'm still having the bloody discharges today and I'm very sore and also tired since sleep has been sporadic. I've also had a great deal of nausea so I haven't really eaten anything I can hold down for awhile either. I may add more to this tomorrow when I hear what he has to say.

Related links from BCAN

Researchers are looking for bladder cancer survivors to complete a telephone survey. Click here for more information.

Newly diagnosed
Information for those newly diagnosed with bladder cancer from BCAN.

Bladder Cancer Basics for the Newly Diagnosed
Download or order a copy of BCAN's patient handbook "Bladder Cancer Basics for the Newly Diagnosed" free of charge.

Clinical trials
Get information about clinical trials and BCAN's Clinical Trials Matching Service which is offered at no charge.

Women and bladder cancer
Information about women and bladder cancer from BCAN.

BCAN's glossary (PDF)

BCAN's November Patient Forum in San Francisco
"Understanding Bladder Cancer: A BCAN Patient Forum"
San Francisco, CA
Saturday, November 7, 2009
9:30 am - 2:30 pm
The forum and lunch are free, but pre-registration is required at www.bcan.org or 888-901-BCAN

Presentations from BCAN's May 2009 Patient Forum
Presentations and slides from BCAN's most recent Patient Forum in Cleveland. Those diagnosed with non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer will be most interested in Dr. Jones' and Dr Pohar's presentations. People diagnosed with muscle-invasive bladder cancer will be most interested in Dr. Gong and Dr. Gilligan's presentations. Dr. Campbell talks about improving outcomes in bladder cancer patients, and Dr. Hansel talks about the importance of pathology in diagnosing, staging, and deciding on treatment for each patient.

Group leaders

You