Our son was diagnosed with bladder cancer, we did the bcg, and the mitamyican, they told us that it was still a stage one since it wasnt thru the muscle wall, what we were not told was the many other ways it will leave the bladder, and his spread to the lymph nodes, making him go into surgery a stage one, and coming out with a stage four. Please, Please get the bladder out, get a pet scan first, to see if there is spread you dont know about, this is supposed to be a slow growing and high cure rate but when it hits the blood stream, and you are watching the muscle, it could be moving very quickly. I do not want to sound like an alarmist, but we lost my son a year ago on March 30th. To a disease that was supposed to be the easiest one to cure. The surgery is hard..and from what we saw, doing it robotically places you at risk of cancer being left behind. Dave went into the ICU after the surgery, he had an 8 inch incision. But due to his internal make up, there was not enough to make a neon bladder. So he had a stoma. He was heavily medicated for the first 48 hours, and by day three, with groaning and moaning, he started walking around the unit. By day five he was unstoppable. His pain was under control, and he was hungry. Our happiness was so short lived, because we were then told that the cancer was in the lypmh nodes. Please get second opinions, please demand care he deserves, and tho it seems radical,to have the bladder out, it will save his life. Please know if you would like to talk, i work nights, as a chemo nurse, crazy huh... but i will be more than happy to help in any way. I am in MI and a phone call away...God bless you both. debi Davidsmom