I got scoped again Tuesday and was able to see the two small tumors in my bladder. It will take ten minutes to remove them and my doctor likens the situation to having a skin lesion. I have to go to the hospital and it is considered "surgery" but I go home with a catheter which should come out the next day.
Until the things are biopsied we can't be sure but it sure looks like early stage zero polyps. The 5 year survival rate is 98%. Bladder cancer has a 60% chance of coming back again. This is my fourth round. I get scoped every three months. Last time I was clean so I had my hopes up this time. My doctor jokes about the fact that we will probably have a long time relationship because of this disease.
If I make the five years I'll be approaching 82 which is the age my dad died of prostate cancer.
Having been involved in cancer research, including prostate cancer, I have a different perspective on my situation than many patients. Read on below and I'll talk about this more.
First of all, I am glad it is not prostate cancer. The prostate can be removed with less effect than having the bladder removed, but the aggressive forms are nasty. My dad went through hell before he finally died. Prostate cancer has a tendency to metastasize to bone and bone cancer is very painful.
I have few symptoms. There is bleeding but I am usually not able to see it. I have a lot of other things wrong with my body but none life threatening. The worse is peripheral neuropathy which makes me unable to feel my feet and now my hands get number all the time. Not being a diabetic, this disease is also a mystery. The other faculty members with offices near mine in the medical education building also came down with it. We were exposed to a lot of lab spills and fumes, etc. They did a study but did not link our cases. The odds of four people getting something this rare independently are very small.
I spent most of my career doing theoretical work but started as a lab scientist. My thesis was about an artificial membrane model made from phospholipids extracted from brain. It involved a lot of lipid chromatography. This was before the fancy columns came on the scene and I would stay up all night collecting samples coming off the column. The solvents we used by the gallon were chloroform, methanol, and benzene. Benzene is a know bladder carcinogen but this was over fifty years ago.
Carcinogens are everywhere so it is impossible to guess what is my source. We have created a world where cancer will be very much part of the scene.
Cancer research is an interesting topic. Look back at my earlier diaries and you will find that I am very cynical about it. Having been into it I have have a perspective most lack. I'll say no more here.
Cancer treatment, on the other hand, keeps improving. I am happy to have done my little bit to help that happen.
I also was in on the early days of genetic engineering with Jon Beckwith at Harvard. I have lots to say about GMOs and the pro GMO crowd here hate me for that.
I evolved into a complex systems theorist and am still active in that sphere. My book with Jim Coffman is a product of that.
As long as I am able I'll be doing more in that area. My diaries here are often attempts to talk about what we have learned in the context of politics. I became a political activist in the 1960s and have a long track record.
So I sit here waiting to find out when the tumors get snipped. Meanwhile I will cook up some more stuff to try to get systems thinking to be a way we do political thin king. I may not live long enough no matter how good the cancer treatment turns out.