BCG Tolerance

Interesting thing, thinking back on it and chatting to the Registrar last week. He, and in fact many of the Registrars, Doctors and my own GP, were really interested in how I got on with the BCG. I was told early on that it would be pretty severe, not to travel, not to fly etc. I was doing long journeys at the time but was warned off.

I reckoned that they were challenging and when I did get a bad one - it really was bad but that was early on when I hadn't worked out what to do. Stupid me was trying to carry on working afterwards and the next day when I should have been lying down. I didn't prepare properly and so on. Once I worked that out things got easier. To anyone who doesn't have to have these it is without doubt the most horrendous sounding treatment to have, especially how they deliver it into your bladder but, as much as you can get used to it, you come to accept it. It is, after all, saving your life and so if you look at things that way then you can deal with it.

It is a strange thing to say that it was OK for me and some people really suffer with it and take a lower dose. I've had 24 all full doses but I'm comparatively young as most people get BC when they are much older and cannot tolerate the sorts of treatments we are talking about here.

I'm just surprised that the Doctors are surprised about the way I tolerate it. I suppose they are told by many patients how bad it is.

I've kept detailed notes about the BCG treatments and the side effects and in a way looking back on them, the first two sets of treatments that were actually killing off the cancer were pretty rough and not nice but I honestly expected that I'd be lying in a heap for days, vomiting and not being able to eat and a pile of much worse stuff, I didn't expect that I'd even be able to walk properly or be up and about but I was OK after 24 hours generally. When I hear of how Chemo and Radio work I tend to think I got away lightly. But again, if you haven't "HAD" to go through it, it still seems terrible.

I think I need to think more about this to do the subject justice. It is, in my opinion, a balance between what is acceptable in terms of cure to you. The IVU X-Ray really made me feel very ill indeed and yet these BCGs made me feel bad for a short time but just look at the results.