Bladder Cancer

Yesterday I had a Same Day Surgery; a TURB, or Cystoscopy with biopsies (2). That makes the fifth in 5 years, but it has been almost 4 years since the last one. I’ve been lucky.

Of course, I have to wait for the results. Lurking deep in my mind is the unthinkable thought that perhaps NOW there is ‘muscle invasion’ where before there had been none. My Bladder Cancer has remained, so far, T1G3, which has meant that I have gotten to retain my bladder.

Still, waiting is not as difficult as it used to be, did not think it would ever happen, but I have gotten used to waiting, in a whole lot of life areas.

In fact, the waiting is a lot easier than going through these procedures. They always knock me for a loop! You would think that because its ‘same day’ that it would be something really, really, easy on you in every way; kind of like going to the dentist.

Not!

First of all it takes a couple of days for all the drugs they gave me to leave my system (They always give me too much, too big of doses, of just about everything, as if I were a 6ft 30 year old male!).

Then getting over the 'stress' of the whole 'same day' thing; the fasting, (I think the lack of salt & fluids causes a lot of my physical discomfort-because of my strange endo probs) arranging transit, no smoking, the 'hurry up & wait', etc takes me a few days to recover from.

And NOW they don't want me to take insulin the morning of, or oral diabetics for 24 hrs prior to the surgery, so I go in with a high blood sugar, (which definitely adds to my discomfort) and it takes me a couple days, at least, afterwards to stabilize THAT. (For one thing, you can’t be suffering brain fog to do this!)

This time I had an extra special treat! The anesthetist that administered the spinal gave me a drug that was supposed to be shorter acting; I was supposed to be able to start moving my legs after just an hour or two. (It did not work that way, legs just barely started working 4 hrs later.) On top of which, he gave me (I found out the day after when he called to check on me) Lidocaine to accomplish this goal.

Well, turns out Lidocaine is KNOWN for causing "Transient Radicular Irritation.” You can do a Google on it, but what it mean is PAIN, sometimes severe (I can vouch for that) in the lower back and legs. It starts several hours after the spinal wears off and can last a couple of days or a week, tapering off all the while. Oh, and then there's the pins & needles effect. Well, this HIT me as I was sitting outside in the dusk (8pm or so) waiting for my ride home. And I still have some intermittent pain/pins & needles in both legs.

So goes the fun...