Nineteen years ago, just after I turned 60, I was diagnosed with bladder cancer. I had noticed some blood in my urine, and the first doctor I talked to told me not to worry about it. Then over the next few months it got worse, and I decided to go to Fox Chase Cancer Center.
I’m 80 years old, and my wife and I live in Ambler, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. I’m a retired information scientist, but I still work as a consultant and write a regular column about information science events.
I was diagnosed with bladder cancer about five years ago. I have lupus, but I see a rheumatologist regularly and have kept the condition under control with medicine for years. Therefore, when I started seeing blood in my urine, I knew something else was going on.
In 2017, I was having one of the best years of my life. I was about to turn 60, I’d lost weight, and I was feeling good and having a great time. Then, insurance stopped covering the medication I took for acid reflux and my stomach started hurting. I visited my family doctor to ask for something to control the reflux. I also asked for an ultrasound of my stomach and gallbladder, because two other members of my family had had emergency gallbladder surgery, so it was on my mind.
My name is Brian Kredo and I am 53 years old. I work as a lawyer and live in Bucks County, which is in suburban Philadelphia, with my wife Jodi and my two teenage children.
A few years ago, I noticed some drops of blood at the end of my urine stream. When I went to see my urologist, he ran some tests, and the results came back atypical. He said we’d need to do a biopsy, but he was going on vacation for two weeks, so he wanted to do it when he got back. That felt like too long to wait.
