Bladder To Be Removed 11-1-05

Like many of you I have done extentsive research on bladder removal and neo bladders. My doctor, Dr. Joseph Smith at Vanderbilt Hospital, Nashville, TN does over 300 of these surgeries a year. I had my consultation with him yesterday, I'm having a radical cystectomy, he expects me to be in the hospital for 4-5 days and home with a catheter for 3 weeks. With recovery in 6-8 weeks. Being able to control your urine will be a personal thing knowing what your body is capable of, it is different with everybody. He expects I will be up and walking the day of the surgery. The surgery should take about 4 hours. I urge anyone to come to Nashville to have this surgery. Dr. Smith is a leading expert in neo bladder surgery, people come to him for all over the world. There is no need to go through 8 hours of surgery. A little about me, I was found to have several T3 tumors back in 1993. Had surgery to remove and 6 weeks of bcg. For the next four years the tumors came back. I have been cancer free for 8 years and two months ago started having trouble again. Turns out this tumor was T2 very invasive, going into the bladder wall muscle. So it has to go along with my lymph nodes and the internal portion of my prostate. He expects me to have full function (sexual speaking)of course I will not produce any semen but I will not lose any enjoyment. I will give a weekly update. Anyone that has any questions feel free to email me and I will tell you how the the plan is progressing.

Hi,
We did this last spring. It tooks us two weeks as the stitches melted too soon. The experience otherwise was wonderful.
If you take morephene after surgery, it may slow your release time. They dont' want you to go home until you can "go". But the don't tell you that morphene is constipating. There are other things to help with the pain.
We were very happy with our doctor and the hospital.
Husband is doing well and we are finally in wafers that are working well. Most of your companies will send you samples of what you and yourdoctor think will work. It is worth looking into.
Best wishes for your surgery.
Rose

How are you doing? What did the doctors finds when you had the sugery? Have you had any complicationss? My dad had the sugery in Oct and has experienced threee complications so far. Hes had a blood clot, abcess and now a blocked ureter. All of these are correctable but very unpleasant and takes a toll on him. Id love to hear about your epxerience.

Deb

Hi Deb,
I am sorry to hear that your Dad is having a rough time. I am happy to report that I have had no complications and after 10 weeks I am pretty much back to normal I would like to go longer durning the day between voidings but that will come with time. The main tumor was a very invasive (into the fat layer) grade 3 I was lucky that it stayed in my bladder so we got it all. At my first big check up the doctors were very happy with my progress and said I was way above the average and don't have to see him again for six months. If there is anything I can do to help your Dad please let me know.

Tim

Im happy to hear things are going so well for you. Did you end up getting the neo-bladder? how long was the sugery? My dads took 71/2 hours and they used a robot to remove the bladder and prostate. Did they take out your prostate? are you going to need chemo?

Take care!
Deb

Yes, I did get the neo bladder the sugery only took 3 hours they removed 12 lyphnodes and hollowed out my prostate (nerve sparing) I will not need chemo as the path reports all came back clear. The shorter sugery time is most likely one of the reasons for my recovery time my doctor uses the robot for some of his prostate sugeries but not for the RC

Tim

why doesnt the surgeon use the robot for the rc? We were one of the first to have the rc with the robots and i wonder if this is why dad is having so many complications. his sugery nerve sparing also took 7 hours. the robot was supposed to reduce the risk of complications. dad ended up having prostate cancer just by chance he didnt know he had it. so for him it was a blessing that they took his out. all of his nodes etc were also clean. thanks for the fast reply!
Deb

I asked my doctor if he would use the robot and he said the robot was not the best choice for a RC he perfered to do them by "hand" the outcome is better.I don't know what he ment by that I was happy to know that he would be in there and not a machine. also anytime you are one of the first to try something new the complication rate can be a factor. How many RC had his doctor done prior to his with or without the robot?

Tim

he did 330 prostates and only four other rcs. he does do about 5 per week,

So are you saying that he does 5 RC aweek with the robot and 4 without or is it that he has only done 4 RC