Feeling Mislead About Recovery After Bladder Removal...Please Help.

Hi there,

My mother-in-law had her bladder removed 12 days ago.   She was never told this would also include a hysterectomy.   She feels mislead.  She is still vomiting and most irritating she has continuous uncontrollable diarreah.  It is NON stop.   Is that normal?   We were told she would be up and going in 7 days. They have given her immodium and still to no avail she is still having a very difficult time.  She is beginning to believe that something is terribly wrong. 

Please respond with you experiences post op.   How long before you felt "normal".   She is 77 and otherwise in perfect  health.

Thanks,

Nikki 

 

 

Hello: I am so sorry to hear about your mother-in-law's situation. My husband has bc and although we haven't reached the surgical treatment yet, I have had a few ideas about what might be happening.  Just to clarify, has anyone been going with her to the doctor appointments? It's possible that the doctor communicated about the hysterectomy and she missed that information.  I say this because I go to every appointment with my husband, and we have both managed not to remember or understand all that was told to us.  Living with this is a trauma and it's human nature to experience "brain freeze."  I don't hesitate to ask to have things repeated and I take notes.

Given the possibility that she was not adequately informed, can she change medical care providers?  This is the time for someone in the family or a close friend to act as her advocate and move on this, with her permission of course.

Someone in your family needs to start researching bladder cancer.  I conducted a review of the research, web sites, diagnosis practices, treatment options, and everything else I could find when we got the diagnosis.  I wasn't surprised that your mother-in-law had a hysterectomy since I have read over that detail several times when searching for information related to men and the specific type of bc that we are facing.

About the diarrhea, call the doctor's office daily and even more often until it is resolved; be sure they understand when she had the surgery, how long she has had the diarrhea, what you tried; repeat the whole story every time.  Ask for other options, ask if this is to be expected, and what to do now to avoid dehydration, etc.

I really believe that my husband would have fallen through the cracks if we had not followed up, asked questions when things didn't make sense, asked for information and help on cathetors, prescriptions, procedures, hygiene, and a million other details.  I urge your family to become more involved and wish you and her the best.

Hello Nikki Your mother-in-law probably received anti biotics after her surgeries and this may be what is causing the diarrhea. We have many thousands of "good" bacteria in our digestive systems which keep things perking along normally as a rule. Antibiotics are meant to destroy the "bad" bacteria throughout out systems but at the same time they destroy the "good" ones and that leads to diarrhea. Someimes severe. I was going to suggest she try acidophilus but then ran across the following article which I hope is helpful. ________ Better Bacteria? Move over, acidophilus. Make room for lactobacillus strain GG (LGG), a kind of beneficial bacteria that has been available as a supplement in this country only since 1998. Some experts say that LGG is superior to acidophilus for the prevention and treatment of diarrhea and other gastrointestinal disturbances. No other beneficial bacteria—not even acidophilus—have been so well supported by scientific tests, according to Barry Goldin, Ph.D., a biochemist and professor in community health at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. Dr. Goldin is the researcher who discovered the strain in 1985, along with Sherwood Gorbach, M.D., professor of community health and medicine at Tufts. Since that discovery, he says, more than 100 scientific papers have reported the effectiveness of LGG in treating a number of gastrointestinal problems. Unlike acidophilus, which is derived from a dairy strain, LGG comes from a sterile form of the bacteria that grow in the human intestine. For this reason, it may be better equipped to survive in the gastrointestinal tract and vagina than acidophilus and other dairy strains of lactobacilli, Dr. Goldin says.

On 11/21/2007 andcole wrote:

Hi there,

My mother-in-law had her bladder removed 12 days ago.   She was never told this would also include a hysterectomy.   She feels mislead.  She is still vomiting and most irritating she has continuous uncontrollable diarreah.  It is NON stop.   Is that normal?   We were told she would be up and going in 7 days. They have given her immodium and still to no avail she is still having a very difficult time.  She is beginning to believe that something is terribly wrong. 

Please respond with you experiences post op.   How long before you felt "normal".   She is 77 and otherwise in perfect  health.

Thanks,

Nikki 

 

 

Hello,

  I believe it is usual to do a hysterectomy when doing the cystectomy. I had had a hysterectomy 3 years prior to my bladder cancer/urachal cancer. She could very well be upset due to hormone changes. As far as the diarhea - I would get with DR asap - there is c diff infections out there - I had it twice and was hospitalized for it it was so bad.

 God Bless, Holly

Hi,

Wow, I am so sorry for her.  We had diahrea for a long time afterwards.  We got onto some probitotics and some goji juice and he is coming out of it.  The worst was the first 6 weeks. 

 The hsyteromectoy is probably just a precaution as at her age, she doesn't need to have further cancer problems...I don't know why they do this but they do.

There are good nutritional things ther to help and the cancer treamtent supplements may be worth reasearching.  They would also have a medical person to suggest the correct stuff that could help.

more research!

Rose