Pathology Results. Doug 4.3?

I was called into my surgeon (Dr. Wong) yesterday to get my staples and stents removed from the RC surgery (radical cysectomy) I had on Feb 29. He also had pathology results from the surgery.

As it turns out, a couple of minutes before I arrived he was called in to emergency surgery at RCH (next door), and had only seconds to see me.

So all the pathology results I have so far were lying flat on my back while he took the staples out. This story may change in the next day or two if I get more information out of him.

OK - so the pathology. I was originally diagnosed with Stage 2 MIBC (muscle invasive bladder cancer) in August 2023 with no evidence of spread. I had 4 rounds of GEM-CIS chemotherapy (Oct-Dec '23) before RC surgery.

The surgical pathology results were that the bladder was completely removed with nice margins surrounding the tumor(s). Same with the prostate and seminal vessels. But one of the eight removed lymph nodes removed showed cancer. So this now has to be reclassified as Stage 3.

EDIT: I did hear from him. Cancer was very aggressive, and had entered the fat layer of the bladder, although when it was removed it appeared completely contained. The actual tumor was about 2cm. To put this in perspective, Dr. Wong had removed the entire tumor in August. It had grown to this size in six months, in the middle of chemotherapy.

Wong is now referring me back to my oncologist (Noonan - I thought she quit!) for immunotherapy. I believe the therapy will be Nivolumab. So while this is not good news, I'm spinning this that having immunotherapy at this stage is probably a good thing. Without the lymph node being affected, I'd go into a monitoring program. This way, regardless of what is actually going on, I'm getting the immunotherapy. Wong may have removed all of the cancer. But maybe he didn't.

ANOTHER EDIT: Got a call today (3/14/24) in to see the Oncologist on April 8.