The call back at 8:30 pm on Thursday evening from Dr. Hossam at Saudi German Hospital wasn't to tell me that the second TURBT operation had been arranged, but because he wanted to introduce me to Dr. Ahmed Hassan, the Consultant Urologist at Saudi German.
We arrived at 9:50 am for a 10:00 am appointment this morning, and then waited until 12:45 pm before Dr. Ahmed could see us. Whilst he was reading through the CT Scans and Pathologists reports (which he had not seen before), his colleague changed my catheter and colostomy bag.
Dr. Ahmed then said that he feels my bladder can be saved with an aggressive TURBT resectoscopy (to remove as much of the tumour and cancer as possible, and to get the biopsy samples from specific locations as requested by the Pathologist for more accurate staging of the cancer) followed by 6 weeks of chemotherapy. Only if that fails to stop the spread of the cancer, and the Pathologist upgrades the cancer from minimum pT1 G3 to pT2G3, should a radical cystectomy be performed.
He was not concerned by the CT scan report of suggested tumour invasion into the perivesical fat on the outside of the bladder wall, because apparently this may have been caused by the TURBT operation. He needs to see a CT scan done before the TURBT resectoscopy, which was never done.
THOUGHTS
Do I push to get the second TURBT (and then the radical cystectomy, if required) done at a specialist cancer centre such as University College Hospital London as soon as possible, or do I let Dr. Ahmed try to save my bladder and loose valuable time in the process if this isn't successful (before then arranging to have the radical cystectomy done in England) ?
We arrived at 9:50 am for a 10:00 am appointment this morning, and then waited until 12:45 pm before Dr. Ahmed could see us. Whilst he was reading through the CT Scans and Pathologists reports (which he had not seen before), his colleague changed my catheter and colostomy bag.
Dr. Ahmed then said that he feels my bladder can be saved with an aggressive TURBT resectoscopy (to remove as much of the tumour and cancer as possible, and to get the biopsy samples from specific locations as requested by the Pathologist for more accurate staging of the cancer) followed by 6 weeks of chemotherapy. Only if that fails to stop the spread of the cancer, and the Pathologist upgrades the cancer from minimum pT1 G3 to pT2G3, should a radical cystectomy be performed.
He was not concerned by the CT scan report of suggested tumour invasion into the perivesical fat on the outside of the bladder wall, because apparently this may have been caused by the TURBT operation. He needs to see a CT scan done before the TURBT resectoscopy, which was never done.
THOUGHTS
Do I push to get the second TURBT (and then the radical cystectomy, if required) done at a specialist cancer centre such as University College Hospital London as soon as possible, or do I let Dr. Ahmed try to save my bladder and loose valuable time in the process if this isn't successful (before then arranging to have the radical cystectomy done in England) ?
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