I was recommended to take all the reports and results to Dr. Moamen Mohammed Amin Abdelrahim at Zulekha Hospital, Dubai for a meeting this morning at 7:00 am for a second opinion.
It didn't start well .... firstly, the Zuleka Hospital does not offer any parking for any of its patients or their visitors, so I had to find a metered parking space outside the hospital grounds, then walk in. How do they expect elderly or less mobile patients / visitors to manage this ??
The next surprise was that in addition to the usual 20% of the consultancy fee not covered by my health insurance, I also had to pay an additional registration fee of Dhs. 60 (GBP 11,50 / US $ 16,30), since this was my first visit to this hospital.
I then had to wait for Dr. Moamen Mohammed Amin Abdelrahim .... my appointment with him was from 7:00 to 7:20 am, but he finally entered the hospital at 7:40 am.
Luckily, things began to improve after this rocky start to the day. Dr. Moamen confirmed that I must have a radical cystectomy, but this must be done in a specialist centre in England (not here, because no surgeon in the UAE has enough experience and the hospitals here don't have the required equipment). The second TURBT operation is also required, not only for the Pathologist to assess the tumour more accurately, but mainly to establish whether my urethra and sphincter is cancer-free (so can be retained for use with a neo-bladder), or if they must also be removed, I will require an external bag to collect the urine from the kidneys.
Dr. Moamen was concerned that the abdomen CT scan was only performed after the first TURBT operation, because he wanted to see (in more detail than an ultrasound scan can show) what the tumour looked like when first diagnosed.
THOUGHTS
I have to keep waiting until my health insurance finally approve the second TURBT operation, and once we have the Pathologist's report from this, I can start making arrangements for the radical cystectomy to be done in England - hopefully before the aggressive cancer tumour cells, which have already invaded into the perivesical fat on the outside of the bladder wall, break through the fat and spread further through my body, making treatment much more difficult, more expensive and with a significantly reduced chance of success.
It didn't start well .... firstly, the Zuleka Hospital does not offer any parking for any of its patients or their visitors, so I had to find a metered parking space outside the hospital grounds, then walk in. How do they expect elderly or less mobile patients / visitors to manage this ??
The next surprise was that in addition to the usual 20% of the consultancy fee not covered by my health insurance, I also had to pay an additional registration fee of Dhs. 60 (GBP 11,50 / US $ 16,30), since this was my first visit to this hospital.
I then had to wait for Dr. Moamen Mohammed Amin Abdelrahim .... my appointment with him was from 7:00 to 7:20 am, but he finally entered the hospital at 7:40 am.
Luckily, things began to improve after this rocky start to the day. Dr. Moamen confirmed that I must have a radical cystectomy, but this must be done in a specialist centre in England (not here, because no surgeon in the UAE has enough experience and the hospitals here don't have the required equipment). The second TURBT operation is also required, not only for the Pathologist to assess the tumour more accurately, but mainly to establish whether my urethra and sphincter is cancer-free (so can be retained for use with a neo-bladder), or if they must also be removed, I will require an external bag to collect the urine from the kidneys.
Dr. Moamen was concerned that the abdomen CT scan was only performed after the first TURBT operation, because he wanted to see (in more detail than an ultrasound scan can show) what the tumour looked like when first diagnosed.
THOUGHTS
I have to keep waiting until my health insurance finally approve the second TURBT operation, and once we have the Pathologist's report from this, I can start making arrangements for the radical cystectomy to be done in England - hopefully before the aggressive cancer tumour cells, which have already invaded into the perivesical fat on the outside of the bladder wall, break through the fat and spread further through my body, making treatment much more difficult, more expensive and with a significantly reduced chance of success.
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