A Lot to Think About

I wanted to write a brief post to let everyone know that my appointment last Wednesday with Dr. Goodman went very well. Pat and I liked him immediately and spent two hours talking with him. He is new to Boston, but has trained under the PMP specialist in Pittsburgh (Dr. Bartlett) and then practiced on his own in California before being recruited to Boston. He is at Tufts New England Medical Center which is a huge hospital complex in downtown Boston. Dr. Goodman reviewed my most recent scan, immediately diagnosed a recurrence and after getting the truncated version of my history, jumped into what his thoughts and plans for me would be. He was personable, compassionate, and not intimidated by the amount of knowledge that Pat and I have about this disease. He believes in sharing information, thinks the bulletin board support group I belong to is a great resource and knows that the Internet can be useful tool. I have no doubt he will check out the URL’s that I gave him, especially when I said I heard about him via a chat room – it’s better PR than any hospital can provide!

Pat and I left the hospital with our heads spinning. We have a lot to think about and I will spell it all out later. I took a few days off from thinking about this stuff to relax and clear my head. I am actually in the midst of a busy week at work so I won’t be posting a follow up until Friday at the earliest.

I do have one small request – send some prayers, well wishes and good thoughts my way next Monday, the 28th. I saw my urologist Dr. Karian on Wednesday prior to my appointment with Dr. Goodman (what a fun day that was!!) and he did a scope inside my bladder. Unfortunately he did not have good news for me. He saw ‘something’ inside the bladder which we are quite certain is tumor. This means that whatever is on the outside of the bladder has somehow penetrated the bladder wall. Typical PMP cells are not invasive and do not penetrate organs, they strangle from the outside. We know that my cells are not typical though since they were found in my urether during my last surgery. Dr. Karian would like to biopsy this thing to confirm that it is the same pathology. I mentioned this to Dr. Goodman at my appointment and without seeing anything he has no doubt about the pathology. He said it can’t hurt to check it out though. The biopsy procedure is relatively simple though somewhat painful and therefore it is done as day surgery. I am having it done on Monday, January 28 at Mt. Auburn. It involves general anesthesia - the biopsy will take less than an hour, but it will take me 2-3 hours to wake up from even that small amount of anesthesia!. We don’t anticipate any problems, but it never hurts to say a few extra prayers.