How It All Began

A couple of years ago I started to experience urinary discomfort. It would last for a week then go away only to return a couple of weeks later. In the end after some nagging from “She Who Must Be Obeyed” I consulted my GP.

Her opinion was that I had an enlarged prostrate though from the symptoms I had described probably not prostate cancer. She referred me to the Urology department at a local hospital.

The consultant confirmed her diagnosis and prescribed an alpha blocker and told me to come back in six months.

After a few months the symptoms were no better and I was starting to suffer from a very tender penis. At its worst it had me walking round bow-legged though that wasn’t usual I’m pleased to say.

I’d had an extensive X-ray survey which seemed to suggest there was nothing serious wrong other than the non-malignant enlarged prostate but it turned out later that there was a hint of something in the bladder. The consultant ignored it.

The discomfort increased and the treatment really didn’t seem to be very effective despite fenisteride being added to my daily drug intake and I was determined to push for a rethink at my appointment in March 2009 when I had a letter cancelling it.

After not hearing of a new date I chased it up and was told that the consultant had returned to Poland and after a few phone calls my care was transferred to another consultant at a different hospital. I was quite pleased at this news as it gave me a fresh start with a fresh mind looking at my problem.


This new consultant ordered various tests and also spotted the remark on the earlier X-ray and saw a similar shadow on an ultra-sound scan he had ordered. He said he wanted to get a camera up into my bladder to see what was going on and so on May 11th i went to have my urethra stretched andan internal examination of the bladder.

When I came round I was told by the consultant that he had taken tissue samples for testing but in his view I had a cancer which had spread into the muscles of the bladder.

I saw him again about a week later when he confirmed this and said the next step was an MRI scan to determine how far the cancer had spread. He thought radiation therapy was the probable treatment but he couldn’t be sure until he had seen the results of the MRI scan.

Last week I saw him again and it was worse than he had thought and he is recommending that a complete removal of my bladder is necessary with possibly some chemotherapy first.

So here I am facing a future of carrying a bag of urine under my shirt.