Florida Bladder Cancer Awareness: June 13, 2013 - Restaging of my bladder cancer

Florida Bladder Cancer Awareness

Katy’s Mission:

To promote bladder cancer awareness to the Florida public. If I can help just one person, then maybe together we can spread the word. Knowing the signs and symptoms can save your life!

Katy’s Story:

Even though I was in the health care field for 20 years and taught smoking cessation classes, I never knew a patient with bladder cancer and never heard of bladder cancer prior to my diagnosis. The signs and symptoms I experienced were classified as a UTI. It wasn’t until a year later that I started to experience intermittent hematuria followed my gross hematuria. It took one and a half years before I was diagnosed with bladder cancer. My goal is to promote bladder cancer awareness in the state of Florida.

My motto:

We each receive blessings along life’s paths. When we do we should pay it forward. A kind act always goes a long way. I thank God every day for being with me along life’s path. I thank physicians who work so hard, medical staff personal who are there with a kind word or smile. I also thank scientists, researchers and generous financial supporters that help find cures.

Friday, May 8, 2015

June 13, 2013 - Restaging of my bladder cancer

Because Johns Hopkins was such a long trip, this time I went to Vanderbilt Universary Medical Center for a consultation and evaluation of my bladder post BCG. They repeated the CT Scan, urine cytology and FISH test. I also went under general anesthesia and had a cystoscopy along with directed biopsies of right, left, anterior, posterior and trigone area. I am happy to report the doctor said my bladder looked beautiful and looked like I never had bladder cancer. We discussed the option of BCG maintenance treatments but because I bled a lot from the first 6 treatments and required bed rest, I asked if I could take a 3 month break with a cystoscopy at the end of 3 months. The doctor explained to me that if I had a recurrence during that time, I would have to start from the beginning with my treatments. I agreed knowing that if it came back during that time, it would be aggressive and I would instead opt for an RC (complete bladder removal). In the meantime, I changed my whole diet to whole foods and increased my fruits and vegetables to a total of 10 servings a day. I also juice twice a day, ate animal protein 3 times a week with vegetarian the rest of the week. I made sure I had 30 minutes in the sun every day for vitamin D. And I took various supplements. Plus, I switched to a slightly alkaline diet and drank lots of water.

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Florida Bladder Cancer Awareness

I was diagnosed with high grade Bladder Cancer in December 2012. So why now do I want to tell my story? Because I couldn’t talk about it before and now I want to promote bladder cancer awareness to the public. To educate others so they can act quickly on any signs and symptoms to rule out bladder cancer. You must be proactive in your health care. Bladder Cancer is 5th most commonly diagnosed cancer in the U.S. The lack of public recognition results is less funding for research, treatment and cure of BC. Bladder cancer is the #4 cancer in men and #9 in women. With proper diagnosis, bladder cancer is a treatable disease and there are more than 500,000 bladder cancer survivors in the U.S. today. If it is not treated early, it could be a deadly disease. I have decided to share my story with others. I hope sharing my story will open the eyes of the public to take caution with chronic UTI infections and blood in the urine and to put themselves under the care of a urolgist ASAP. Seek a second, or even a third opinion. My goal is to bring bladder cancer awareness to the public so we can talk about what is normally an unmentionable subject. Finally, I would like to thank the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network for promoting bladder cancer awareness, their moderators and my fellow BCAN family for all their education and support. I don’t know where I would be today without their help. If you have been recently diagnosed with bladder cancer and need help, I encourage you to visit BCAN Inspire.

Florida Bladder Cancer Awareness