Well those of you who know me well know that I am a 39 year survivor of cancer in my pelvic area. I was exposed to a drug called DES which was given to my mother when she was pregnant with me. It was in 1982 and I was 22 years old. It was Stage Three, which is pretty scary. I was treated with surgery and radiation at Mass General Hospital and I'm incredibly grateful for my long-term survival.

Well, this year, in March, I started having symptoms similar to a UTI, was treated with antibiotics for 12 days, but got no relief. I got a CT scan which showed a stone the size of a ping pong ball in my bladder. It was obviously too big to pass on my own (yikes!) so I had an outpatient surgery in April to get it lasered out.

The urologist was very concerned about how inflamed all the tissues looked like in the area next to the stone so advised me to take a month to let it heal and then he did a cystoscopy (a scope to look inside the bladder) in May and took some biopsies of the irregular tissues.  I was really caught by surprise to learn that both samples showed Stage One Bladder Cancer.

I then had two surgeries called TURBT (one in June and one in August) to try to remove all the tumor from the bladder. Both times a 3 cm. tumor (size of a ping pong ball again) were removed.  Unfortunately, between the first and second surgeries, the tumor had progressed from Stage One to Stage Two which is pretty troubling.  My doctor thinks that the radiation treatment I was given 39 years ago may have caused this cancer today. 

So, I have begun this journal to jot down some notes as I deal with the medical and emotional and the practical aspects of beating this damn cancer again!