Third opinion

Tonight I had a 30 minute chat by phone with an uncle of a friend of mine (thanks, Eliot!) who was the nicest guy, a urologist of many years experience who asked me a list of questions about my medical history so far, and then basically confirmed that my outlook is very good, I should stop worrying myself so much with things that are very unlikely, and answered a lot of my questions.

He also confirmed that I picked a surgeon with good training, that UCSF is a great place for treating my condition and that in all likelihood the removal of tumors and frequent follow-up to watch for possible recurrence will be all that'll be necessary.

The funniest line from him was about patients he has who are in their 90's who have had the low grade bladder cancer and he's their fourth urologist to monitor them because they have outlived the first three!

He also pointed out that already we have tests now that can find evidence of cancer cells in urine that didn't exist even three years ago, so as time and research marches on, there will be more that science will come up with which may reduce the annoyance, discomfort and uncertainty of the current monitoring methods...