My Three Month Check

At last, my three-month review!

Well, it’s actually been seven months but never mind that for now as it is just good that it’s finally happened.

Over the months I have had some symptoms and have worried a great deal about them. Were they the return of my tumor or the result of tissue damage caused by radiation? At one point I thought I might have a bladder infection and took a urine sample to my GP for analysis. There was no sign of a bacterial problem but both my red and white cell counts were a little high. I queried that with her as I had been told that an elevated white cell count was a marker for cancer but she reassured me. This sample had a very slightly elevated level something like 21 when normal is 17 whereas last year my white cell count was in the thousands. I sighed with relief and as she had suggested that I just had some inflammation in my urinary tract I took ibuprofen for a week and that seemed to be effective.

Anyway I went into Wythenshawe on Monday in preparation for the procedure on Tuesday June 1st and I was pleasantly surprised about how good the unit was. I was well-briefed and my concerns and worries were answered with sensitivity. I was given a choice of a general or an epidural and opted for the former as when somebody is doing horrible things to a very sensitive and important bit of my anatomy I’d rather know nothing about it.

Mr. R, the surgeon consultant in charge I had met last year and had found him rather intimidating but not this time. We had a very useful conversation in which he explained what he was looking for and confirmed what my GP had said about inflammation being as a result of damage done by the radiotherapy.

When I came round one of the team explained to me that they had found some redness (not unexpected) and a thicker than normal wall on one side of the bladder which they had “shaved) and taken some samples for examination. As a result I was once more stuck in overnight as they had to fit a catheter which is what I had been dreading given the burning agony I suffered last year as one was removed from my very sore and painful urethra.

When it came time to remove it they were excellent giving me some strong pain-killers first and using an analgesic cream all over the sensitive member. It was uncomfortable but certainly not as dreadful as last time.

Naturally they will not let you out until they are sure your bladder is working and you are passing water adequately and there we hit problems. They usually get you to urinate into a bottle so they can measure the output and compare it to what you have drunk. The first two bottles had a bare dribble in them and then when I needed to go again there was nobody about so I had no bottle. So my first two real pees went unmeasured and they just didn’t believe me and insisted on doing an ultrasound scan of my bladder to see how much it contained. During the procedure they had measured my bladder capacity and ascertained it to be about 300ml. This ultrasound scan showed my bladder contained 300ml of urine and that, they said, was not safe and they said I should not leave until they were sure I was emptying my bladder at least as fast as my kidneys were filling it.

ReluctantlyI hung around trying to pee into their bottles but urination was uncomfortable and I wasn’t having too much success. I drank a lot and managed 100ml and a nurse, J, ran the scan again getting a first reading of 175ml and a second reading of 240. they said that was still not good enough & I was getting a bit angry. At about 8pm I managed another bottle of 100ml and J did the scan again. This time he got a reading of 400ml which, as I pointed out, was utterly ridiculous given that my bladder capacity was only 300ml and I had just peed 100ml. He re-booted the scanner and did it again getting readings of 300ml and 340ml. At that point I suggested he should chuck the scanner in the bin as the sort of variations he was getting meant that you really couldn’t rely on anything it said. I also questioned the other nurse’s reading of 300ml earlier in the day as I reckoned that was also likely to have been only one of several highly variable scores. J advised me to drink some hot water as a way of loosening up the tissues, wait until I was really bursting then use a bottle again. I did that and just after 9pm managed a further 150ml. At that point I left the hospital as I reckoned I trusted my own knowledge of the way my bladder works more than I trusted their damned scanner.

So I’m home and feeling a bit sore but very relieved it’s over.

I won’t hear from them for about three weeks as the biopsy analysis isn’t thought of as urgent which of itself is reassuring and the doctor of the team that I spoke too said there was certainly nothing they saw that screamed “cancer” to him.