How to Return to Normal After Having Your Bladder Surgically Removed

When Jodi Byfuglin, 56, was diagnosed with bladder cancer, it felt like cruel irony. Byfuglin had lost both her parents to cancer in their 50s, and as a single mother of two, she was all her kids had left. “I promised that I would not leave them,” Byfuglin says. Bladder cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the United States, and older men are at highest risk. But about one-tenth of cases are in people younger than 55, and an estimated 19,480 women will be diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2022 (compared to about 61,700 men), according to the American Cancer Society. “I had no idea about bladder cancer,” Byfuglin says. “It’s like a silent killer; it goes from zero to 1,000 really quick.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] For high-grade or muscle-invasive bladder cancer, urologists perform a radical cystectomy in which they remove the patient’s bladder and some of the surrounding organs. In men, that can include the prostate and seminal vesicles; in women, the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and uterus. Surgeons then create a new way for patients to urinate via one of three diversions: the urostomy, neobladder, or Indiana pouch. The vast majority of patients choose the urostomy, in which surgeons create a stoma—a beefy red spout protruding from the belly—so that urine can flow from the kidneys, through an intestinal conduit, and out the body. Urine drains into a clear oval-shaped pouch attached to the stoma th...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Disease freelance healthscienceclimate Source Type: news