Stories

In 2008, I was diagnosed with bladder cancer. Before my initial diagnosis, I had just started a new job and did not have health insurance when my symptoms appeared. I eventually went to the emergency room, where I received an ultrasound and the ER doctor informed me that they found… Read More

In 1980, I was diagnosed with Reiter’s syndrome, an autoimmune disease consisting of a triad of symptoms, iritis, urethritis, and arthritis. Over the years, individual symptoms would occasionally flare up. My eyes would burn, or my joints would hurt, and if all three flared up simultaneously, I would have… Read More

Although I worked in healthcare for 30 years as a genetic counselor, Melanie was shocked to learn that she had bladder cancer. She told BCAN: Melanie and her husband In 2018, a year before my diagnosis I was having heaviness of the pelvic floor that prompted me to schedule… Read More

My first indication that something was wrong was that I began having heavy bleeding, which was very scary.  As a female, I wasn’t even sure where it was coming from.  I called my doctor, and the nurse practitioner told me to come in for a urine test.  I was… Read More

Vietnam Veteran and BCAN volunteer, Jim Scott shares his bladder cancer story at the 2018 Bladder Cancer Think Tank Read Jim’s interview with the American Homefront Project, “More Vietnam vets now qualify for disability benefits, but it may be years before they see the money.” My name is… Read More

In August of 2004 I had a routine appointment with my pulmonologist at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (UIHC) during the 4th quarter of a 20-year “smoker study.”  The day before, when I saw blood in my urine and the local urologist couldn’t see me for five weeks. … Read More

It was summer of 2018, one night in late July, about two o’clock in the morning. I woke up with this horrific pain in my back on my right side, but I did not think too much of it. Maybe I slept wrong. So, I turned over hoping it would… Read More

Carlos and his wife, Angie, on vacation in British Columbia. It was in the fall of 2016 when I noticed that sometimes my urine would have a slight discoloration. It was very subtle, just a light pink tinge that would only happen occasionally. I really did not think anything of… Read More

Glenn H., his wife and his mother, who also had bladder cancer. In the summer of 2009, I began having trouble urinating and voiding. At the time I was 54 and thought “Well, maybe it’s the prostate or something,” but it eventually went away. My family and I took a… Read More