Transcript of Part 2: My Experiences as a Bladder Cancer Caregiver with Beáta Baker

November 10, 2021

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Voice over:

This is Bladder Cancer Matters, the podcast for bladder cancer patients, caregivers, advocates, and medical and research professionals. It’s brought to you by the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network, otherwise known as BCAN. BCAN works to increase public awareness about bladder cancer, advances bladder cancer research, and provides educational and support services for bladder cancer patients and their loved ones. To learn more, please visit BCAN.org.

Rick Bangs:

Hi, I’m Rick Bangs, the host of Bladder Cancer Matters, a podcast for, by, and about the bladder cancer community. I’m also a survivor of muscle invasive bladder cancer, the proud owner of a 2006 model year neobladder, and a patient advocate supporting cancer research at the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network, or as many call it, BCAN, producers of this podcast. This podcast is sponsored by Merck. I’m excited to present part two of our conversation with Beáta Baker, wife of bladder cancer survivor, Steven Baker. Beáta was Steven’s caregiver, and offers her perspectives on what it was like being in that role for her husband. Also, be sure to listen to part one of my conversation with Beáta, available on the BCAN.org website.

Rick Bangs:

Okay. So let’s talk about, in this treatment phase, the roles that you played as caregiver, because there were I’m sure a lot of different roles, and I’m going to start out with one that I, having been a caregiver for my dad with ALS, and along with being on the receiving end of a neobladder, recognize as being challenging, and that’s communicating to people how things are going. So talk a little bit about that, and then we’ll talk about any other roles that you play, which I have a feeling there were quite a few.

Beáta Baker:

Well, yeah. The communication thing, it’s definitely wonderful that to be in an age of social media and something just beyond email to communicate something like that, it was hard enough. Once Steven was diagnosed, we had … Some of our parents were still alive, his mom and my mom at that time when he was diagnosed. And they live in Virginia and Michigan. My family’s in Michigan, his family’s in Virginia. My brother, his children, his wife, Steven’s sister and brother-in-law and their kids at that time, I think were still in Virginia. So, having to send those group emails at the beginning was tough.

Rick Bangs:

Yeah.

Beáta Baker:

Once you know what’s go going on and there are people, friends and other family and even clients, who want to know what’s going on. I leaned heavily at that time, care pages was a thing. I don’t think care pages exist anymore, but at that time, that was the medium that I chose and I have of course chose, the name of Steven’s page was, Not Without My Bladder, because I needed something funny.

Rick Bangs:

Yeah.

Beáta Baker:

And that was a godsend for me because not only could I say, okay, I posted it on my Facebook page and on his that this is how we’re communicating. If you want to know, sign up here, it’s on you, you don’t got to, but if you want to stay in touch, this is the way to do it. That was helpful not only to disseminate information, let people know what was going on, to get just really lovely responses back. I know that really lifted Steven’s day every day, just to see all the attaboys and all the go get them communications that people would respond with. But for me, because I am a writer and because my left brain, the practical part was so heavily involved with scheduling and medications and driving and everything else, my right brain just went dormant. There was no creativity there whatsoever, but with the care pages slowly, I realized this can be my writing exercise every day. And so, that helped my soul as well as just communicating with people.

Rick Bangs:

It’s pretty important to be helping your soul along the way.

Beáta Baker:

It is, yeah. That just helped a great deal. And then, I don’t want to skip ahead too much. But then the day of the actual surgery, when he was having his Neobladder constructed and his own bladder removed, as you well know, that’s at least an eight hour day in the hospital and can go longer.

Rick Bangs:

Yeah.

Beáta Baker:

I chose to be alone in the waiting room. I didn’t want anybody waiting with me because I would feel the need to entertain them and take care of them.

Rick Bangs:

Yeah, that part of your brain was also dormant at this time.

Beáta Baker:

Yeah. And so, my best friend in Michigan, she was saying, “Oh my God, I’ll fly out there and be with you”. And it’s like, “Oh honey, no, seriously”. I said, “I love that you said that. And that means the world to me, but I would feel the need to take care of you”. So, I’m sitting there and that was perfect because I had both access to Steven’s Facebook page and to my Facebook page. And as the time would go by, and of course the first notification I got from Dr. Wright was that the bladder had been successfully removed and that everything looked exactly the way it was supposed to, that it was textbook. And so it was like, oh, terrific. So he said, “I’m going to go have lunch and then we’re going to build a neobladder”. And that makes sense, right? You don’t want your doctor starving. You don’t want your doctor to be hangry while-

Rick Bangs:

No. Nor do I want anybody fainting in the process.

Beáta Baker:

Exactly. While you’re being fileted like a fish. So that was the first, I could post updates and then I also just need to say this while I’m in the waiting room mentally in my head, there was a young man in the waiting room whose mother was having surgery. And he had brought his guitar and he was very softly playing classical guitar for about four hours. That saved my life. It was so beautiful. And then, I saw him get up, go to the phone that’s in the waiting room and you get the news that your person’s okay. And he went in and he was packing it up to go home and I still had four hours to go. So I went up to him and I said, “Thank you so much for doing this”.

Beáta Baker:

And he was like, “Oh, thank you for saying that. I was so worried that I was like being a bother or something, but I was going to go crazy if I just sat here”. And I said, “No, I get it. I completely get it”. And I said, “I just want you to know that you not only helped yourself, but you really helped me today just to have that little soft guitar”. So the that’s one of those happy accidents that just happened. And I just wanted to say that because those things happen. You get the happy accidents as well as all the yikes things that happen along the way.

Rick Bangs:

Right. Well, and clearly here’s the case where he’s in a caregiving role and he has to do something to help him through it, which is really important as we’ve already discussed relative to your situation and his. Any other roles you played as caregiver during the treatment phase?

Beáta Baker:

Well, some of it’s very mundane. It’s really just scheduling, driving. I still-

Rick Bangs:

Yeah, but it’s not just because there’s a lot of.

Beáta Baker:

There’s tons of it, yeah. You’re a cheerleader, of course. You have to try to see the sunny side of everything and you don’t want to bright side, that’s a Barbara Erlichman term, the wonderful writer, Barbara Erlichman, who, who said she got sick and tired of people telling her to, oh, make the best of it when she had breast cancer.

Rick Bangs:

Right.

Beáta Baker:

She called it being bright-sided. And so, I didn’t want to bright side him, but again, just taking copious notes whenever we’d have a consult. I’d read them back so he could hear what was actually said and not just what was brewing right in his head. And then, being an advocate and that’s really the strongest role. We did not have many bad experiences in terms of staffing or anything, but because we’re people who’ve been in some sort of production work our entire life, staged events or theater, or putting writing material together, this has always been our world and we ask questions, we just asked questions. We troubleshoot.

Beáta Baker:

And for instance, I had to be an advocate for him when there was one particular staff person at the hospital who had a lot of nervous energy and their energy actually had an adverse effect on Steven, who again, he does not fold easily, he is an ox. But he was so freaked out by the nervous energy of this person that he had what was called a vasovagal response, which is you faint.

Rick Bangs:

Right.

Beáta Baker:

I had never seen this man faint. At that point, we’d been married for 27 years and I had never seen him faint. So that was quite something. And at that point, I go to our AR&P, to Susan and I say, “I’m not a complainer by nature, but I never want to see this person again”.

Rick Bangs:

Right.

Beáta Baker:

I said, “It’s not a good fit”. So I was an advocate that way. And then just asking questions, for instance, one of his chemos was going to happen right around Thanksgiving. And it’s like, well, I don’t want to insult anybody, but who pulls the short straw, right? For Thanksgiving. And you don’t want to insult the staffers, but you’ve been in the workforce for 40 years and you know, that not everybody is part of the A team. So we would ask those questions and then smooth things over until you got the answers.

Rick Bangs:

Right. Oh, wow. Okay. So now, let’s talk about recovery. So surgery is over, we’ve got some time in the hospital, some time after for recovery. What was the recovery period like? And what roles did you play as caregiver there?

Beáta Baker:

And I just want to say one thing about the surgery and the recovery week in the hospital, because Steven had a surgery on December 21st, right before Christmas.

Rick Bangs:

Oh.

Beáta Baker:

And that was another question. And Dr. Wright, of course assured us, he goes, “I handpick my team. It doesn’t matter what day of the week it is. Doesn’t matter what the holiday is. I handpick my team”. And I was like, “Okay”, because he was in the hospital from the 21st through the 28th. And that meant he was in the hospital on Christmas day. And once again, a shout out to Dr. Wright who after his own children were all sugared up, opened up their presents, and passed out, he came and spent two hours with us in the hospital on Christmas day. That’s a mensch, that’s a guy, that’s a guy you want on your team. And again, that compassion that we sensed. So, that was fabulous.

Beáta Baker:

So getting back to your thing, the postoperative thing, that is really … He came home with two bags and I don’t know how many tubes. Which, I’m sure you did too. You come home with these apparatuses at first just to make sure things running. And so, those two weeks right after surgery for the caregiver, they are not glamorous. It’s a lot of flushing tubes and rinsing bags and disinfecting, and you’re buying sterile saline and making sure that it’s work or be work, you just do it. It’s decidedly unglamorous, but you also find out it’s like, hey, it’s a problem that needs to be solved. It’s an assignment that needs to be done. And there will be an end to this.

Beáta Baker:

That’s also the good news, right? Is you go back to the hospital after those two weeks and the tubes come out and the bags are no longer part of it. And now it’s just, okay, let’s see how the Neobladder is doing. So those, like I said, those first two weeks are very … On my part, it was just lots of nursing, adjunct business. On Steve part, he was an excellent patient. I want to say this, all throughout, he was phenomenal, which is funny because I think the seriousness of this is what made him such a great patient, give the man a cold and he’s big baby. He is.

Rick Bangs:

He gets the man flu, is that what you’re telling us?

Beáta Baker:

He doesn’t know how to take care of himself. It’s like, honey, stay home, stay in bed for two. Now of course, COVID has changed everything. You take everything seriously, but 10 years ago, it’s like, you have a cold, it’s like, oh no, I got to go to work. I got to do this. And it’s like, no, you don’t. And so, I had to like force-feed him chicken soup for a cold, but you give the man cancer and all of a sudden, he’s an Olympian. He was amazing. He followed everything. Again, since walking’s our thing, even with the bags and the tubes, if he could only walk down to the end of our street, that’s what he would do. He wanted to be very proactive in his own recovery. And so, as soon as he was able to do something, he would do it.

Rick Bangs:

Oh, that all makes sense.

Beáta Baker:

And I also need to give a shout at that we had a phenomenal dog at the time. We had a lab mutt, Jimmy Bosco. He was an older dog. At that time he would’ve been, gosh, he would’ve been like 11 years old when Steven was going through his cancer and he glued himself to Steven’s side. It’s like he knew something was wrong and he glued himself to Steven’s side. And he also encouraged him to go for those walks because walkies were his favorite thing. So I think that was another thing, I think it helped that Steven had this other creature that needed him. And of course, I could have done all the walks, but he didn’t want me to just have that time with Jimmy. He wanted to be part of Jimmy’s world as well while we were going through that. So man, that helped. It helped a lot. Having a really loving pet helped a lot.

Rick Bangs:

Yeah, that’s a wonderful distraction.

Beáta Baker:

Yeah.

Rick Bangs:

Okay. So now, we’re through recovery and we’ve got a fairly lengthy period, because we’re talking about 2011 until now. We’re in this steady state. What was that like for Steve? And then, what roles did you play as caregiver across these past nine-ish plus years?

Beáta Baker:

So at the beginning, as you will know, with the Neobladder, you got to make sure that you don’t tax it. You have to get up, and because your nerve endings are just completely different, your urge to urinate is completely different. It feels different. And you just have to be on a timer for a while.

Rick Bangs:

Yep.

Beáta Baker:

To make sure you don’t stress the Neobladder, that you don’t punch a hole in it because you’re not getting another one.

Rick Bangs:

Right.

Beáta Baker:

Yeah. And so, he was very conscious of paying attention to everything he had been taught in Neobladder school, in his Neobladder lessons. And I imagine nobody wants to self-catheter themself and you get sent home with these little red plastic straws that look positively medieval and it’s like, okay, I don’t ever want to have to use this, so let me do this. So he paid very close attention to that part of it, to just taking care of the Neobladder. My thing again was like, okay, we now have a reality that includes Depends, right? Because sometimes, you leak and sometimes you can’t really tell if you need. We’ve got a reality that involves bed pads. And so I learned it’s something as simple as, oh, do I want an entire bottom waterproof sheet or covering over the mattress that I then put the sheet over?

Rick Bangs:

No.

Beáta Baker:

No you don’t.

Rick Bangs:

No, that’s a rhetorical question, you do not want this.

Beáta Baker:

It boils you to death. It is hot. It is uncomfortable. And it boils you to death.

Rick Bangs:

Yes, and it’s noisy too.

Beáta Baker:

So anybody listing out there, it’s noisy. You don’t want that. You want the little 36 inch by 48 inch or whatever they are sheets from Walgreens that you buy a hundred at a time.

Rick Bangs:

Or even better, the breathable one.

Beáta Baker:

Yeah, or that. For us, the pads worked out just right because then that’s what we take when we travel, right? You take a 10 pack of pads with you. I got very good about knowing when Costco had their sale on Depends because it’s an eight dollar difference and this is a consumable that we always buy now. So you learn that. So I was just trial and erroring these things. You learn to make sure, since Steven was on Coumadin because of the Factor V Leiden, he would have to be on blood thinners. Happily didn’t take any other meds at that time. So it’s just, okay, let’s make sure that we keep this up, that we never run out of this, this stays stable. So the beginning of it was all practical, learning how to take care of the Neobladder. And my thing was, what accessories do we need? It sounds crazy, but there it is, right? It’s part of your life now.

Rick Bangs:

Right, yeah.

Beáta Baker:

The best part of it was okay, what normal things can we return to? Because really, for a year, your life is hospitals and really nothing else. And one of the things that happened to Steven that I actually didn’t know about, because he didn’t share this with me until afterwards, is that after he got his diagnosis, he walked to the garage and he just looked around and he said, “Got all these little projects that I’m not going to get to do now”, because you do have to contemplate your mortality, right? You just do.

Rick Bangs:

Yes we do.

Beáta Baker:

Yeah, and he had this moment of, huh, I’m never going to do this. So he let himself go there. But then, because things had gone so well during his surgery because … And I forgot to mention this, he didn’t have to be in intensive care. He went right from postop into his room and that’s always a good sign too, right?

Rick Bangs:

Absolutely.

Beáta Baker:

And so, because he had been tilted on his head for eight hours, he was incredibly swollen, but that was really the main weird thing when I saw him after the surgery. So because things had progressed so well, he was giving all these encouraging signs that life could get back to normal. What’s the new normal going to be? And one of the things I love that he did, because he tends not to spend money on himself. He just doesn’t tend to do that. And when he does decide to buy something, he researches it within an inch of his life. So by the time he comes to me and says, “I’d really like” I’m like, yes because I know he’s been researching it for six months.

Beáta Baker:

What I loved is that he came up to me and he goes, “Okay, I think I want two things”. I said, “Okay”. He goes, “I really want to tailored guitar. And I really want to buy a motorcycle”. I was like, “Honey, if you’re ever going to play the cancer card now is the time to do it”. And this was within that, I would say within six months after the surgery that he wanted a tailored guitar and he wanted the motorcycle. He used to ride motorcycles when he was a young man in Virginia, it terrifies me. But I know he knows what he is doing and he is not going to be stupid. The guitar and the motorcycle, that was a wonderful return to normal. And then the first scuba diving trip we took after surgery was a huge, huge thing because Steven, he’s basically part marine mammal. He got certified. I’ve been looking for gills for years. He has been diving since he was 12 years old.

Beáta Baker:

He got permission to take a college class because he was so adamant about doing it back in Virginia. And he convinced the teacher that he belonged in that class. So you can get certified to dive with an adult when you’re that young. And so, he’s been diving his whole life. I didn’t get certified until I was 40, but we’ve been diving together and that’s been our thing, going on these dive vacations and we love it. And he didn’t know what would it be like with the Neobladder? What would it be like with his tube 2.0 body? His post-cancer body?

Beáta Baker:

And doing that first trip was wonderful because there was no difference. And again, it was like watching him on the motorcycle, the first time I saw him get into the water, he is like an otter in the water. He is so happy and playful in the water. And when I saw that again, that even post-cancer, he was still an otter in the water. It was like, okay, this is going to be fine. He’s going to be okay. So those were the wonderful new normal that were basically a slightly different version of the old normal, but it was great to return to.

Rick Bangs:

Absolutely.

Beáta Baker:

Yeah.

Rick Bangs:

What a great story.

Beáta Baker:

Well, and of course and my job as caregiver, and this is just to keep saying yes. It’s just like, yeah.

Rick Bangs:

Yeah, well sometimes that is the job, right?

Beáta Baker:

Yeah.

Rick Bangs:

So it’s not all about no, it can be about yes too.

Beáta Baker:

Yeah.

Rick Bangs:

Okay. So let’s step back and look at this whole caregiver experience and maybe summarize some key points, because I think you’ve covered some of this in pieces, but maybe pull it together thematically. So how did you manage stress and emotions for yourself?

Beáta Baker:

For myself? Because we kept up our daily walks, that was great because that was part of our normal existence and we had Jimmy. So of course, having a loving, wonderful pet makes a difference. But in terms of my own little community, a lot of which was my girlfriends, my women that I rallied. I belonged to a certain gym at that time and that was a godsend. I still went every day that I could. Every day that was not a 12 hour day in the hospital, I would go to my gym and I had this little cadre of girlfriends there who were like, “How is it today?” They knew everything that was going on. They said we’re either praying for you or shining white light on you or whatever their faith modality was. It was wonderful to get that encouragement. I would get hugged by them every day. So that was not only taking care of my physical self, but also getting that mental boost.

Rick Bangs:

Which is critical.

Beáta Baker:

Oh my gosh, you have to, right? Because otherwise, you just get depleted.

Rick Bangs:

Right. And a depleted caregiver is not an effective caregiver, but it’s so hard to carve that time out and make that happen because there’s so much going on.

Beáta Baker:

Yeah. And I knew always that whatever plans I made, I might have to cancel them.

Rick Bangs:

Yep.

Beáta Baker:

But again, because Steven was such a good patient and because he did everything that he was told he was supposed to do to ensure a successful outcome, that made it possible for me to have my own, whatever my little glimpses of normal and supportive and nourishing were during that time.

Rick Bangs:

Right.

Beáta Baker:

The care pages again, these little things would happen. Somebody would read about, we’d gone to an acupuncturist that we really liked. And there were two friends that picked up on that. And I had mentioned the acupuncturist name. And so, they themselves tracked her down, found out where she is and got us gift certificates. It’s like, oh, we read that you liked this acupuncture experience. We’ve paid for your next two sessions. One of Steven’s clients had read my posting of, “Steven felt good enough today to vacuum the house”. And she immediately got in touch with me and said, “Well, that’s just wrong. You shouldn’t be doing housework at all. I’m sending my cleaning team”. And for me, I despise house cleaning. I’m not one of these people who really get a rush from it. I despise it. And that was like the best gift.

Rick Bangs:

That was a win-win. Win-win for both of you.

Beáta Baker:

I love her. Somebody that Steven went to high school with who had signed up on or pages said, “You know? I live in this place that’s famous for its ice cream. I’m going to ship some ice cream to them”. What an adorable thing to do. So things like that would happen. And that’s very nourishing for the caregiver, right? Because that’s something I did not initiate. That’s something I didn’t have to track down, organize, schedule, pay for, anything. So those little things, when people would call up and say, “I can bring you dinner next week. Here’s what I’m good at. And here are my days of the week. Does any of that work for you?” Oh my God. It was wonderful.

Rick Bangs:

Yeah. And that’s a lot more helpful than just … It’s well intentioned, but offer to help and be available, getting specific, even if you get the rejection on the specific thing, at least it’s something that you can process and say, “Yeah, that would help me. I’d be happy if you did that”.

Beáta Baker:

Yeah. And so much more helpful than the blanket, “Call me if there’s anything you need”.

Rick Bangs:

Right.

Beáta Baker:

And of course that’s well intentioned and God bless people for saying that, but it’s giving you homework on top of already a full plate.

Rick Bangs:

Yeah, you’ve already got enough schoolwork to do.

Beáta Baker:

Yeah.

Rick Bangs:

All right, so any final thoughts on advice you might give somebody, lessons learned that you want to share?

Beáta Baker:

I think what we just discussed, that whole thing about you can’t be depleted and really take care of somebody else. I know that this is an example that’s used a lot these days, but the whole airplane thing of when the oxygen mask comes down, you got to put on your own first.

Rick Bangs:

Right.

Beáta Baker:

That’s really true. You’ve got to put on your own oxygen mask first, make sure that you’re eating, that you’re exercising, that you’re hydrating, that you’re sleeping, if you can do that. Whatever your sources are, tap your sources. One of the interesting things that happened to me is that one night when I couldn’t sleep, I was wondering, why can’t you buy a bladder? The way you can get another heart or get a set of lungs or get a liver or get a kidney, it’s like, why can’t you go to the bladder store and buy a bladder? Of course this is the simplistic way of putting it, but I thought, why aren’t there any transplants?

Beáta Baker:

So I went online and I’m looking that up. And I find out that in a teaching hospital, I think in North Carolina, they’re growing a bladder on a matrix and that it’s been implanted in somebody. I immediately, I think in the middle of the night, I sent email to Dr. Wright going, “Hey, why can’t we do this? Why can’t we just buy a new bladder?” And then he of course tells me that, okay, first of all, it’s mainly for pediatric purposes, it’s being developed for spina bifida, children with spina bifida who often have bladder problems. And it’s going to be about another 10 years before all the testing is done. So I had that, and then I also really luckily have a godson who is a medical physicist. And right now, he happens to be in oncology at the Mayo Clinic.

Beáta Baker:

At the time, he was still finishing up the kerjillion years of study that you’ve got to do as a doctor. But he was still, whenever I had a question, he would be my first source because he is my godson and I adore him and he is just a kind and compassionate person. And so, there was one day where I said, “Well, I almost wish that Steven got cancer in something he has two of, so at least he could keep one like lung cancer or kidney cancer because at least he could keep one”. And John, my godson was like, “Oh no, no, no, no, no, no you do not want that. Bladder cancer is bad enough, but trust me just because you have two of something doesn’t mean it’s going to be easier”.

Beáta Baker:

So he would, when I’d go too deeply into doctor internet, he would pull me back into reality and say, “Oh no, no, no, no”. So just, if you’ve got sources like that, just somebody to give you a comforting word, whether it’s poor Dr. Wright, who has to tell me, no, you can’t buy a bladder yet. This is something that’s just being developed or a godson who says, “Okay, this is why this thought process is not going to help you”.

Rick Bangs:

Right. And actually, one of our prior podcast guests, I was talking to him about artificial bladders and apparently we’ve stalled. So you were still at that point where it was viewed more promising than it’s turned out to be, from a research point of view.

Beáta Baker:

Yeah. I still ask about it every time.

Rick Bangs:

Well yeah, of course.

Beáta Baker:

I remember the last BCAN conference I went to in 2019, that was still one of my questions is like, “Hey, can we print one of these yet?”

Rick Bangs:

Right.

Beáta Baker:

Can we get a 3D printer and print a bladder yet?

Rick Bangs:

That’s right, the 3D printers now, why not?

Beáta Baker:

Yeah. But not yet.

Rick Bangs:

Right. Oh Beáta, thank you so much for your time today and giving us an inside look at the role of the caregiver. I know our listeners are going to have a better understanding of the significant challenges and the important contributions made by caregivers. And your story has been just so fascinating.

Beáta Baker:

Oh, thank you. That’s very kind of you to say and I’m so honored to be asked really. It’s always nice to share your story. And I know that you know that this December will mark the 10 year anniversary of Steven’s being cancer free, which just feels amazing and miraculous because when you’re in it, of course, those other little marks the two year mark, the five year mark.

Rick Bangs:

Right.

Beáta Baker:

Those are so huge and your chances get better and better. I am so grateful. So anything I can do to either inform or cheer or anything that might help somebody out, I’m really grateful to have the opportunity. So thank you so much for asking.

Rick Bangs:

Well, you’re awesome. That’s all the time we have today for our two part episode, being a bladder cancer caregiver with Beáta Baker. Just a reminder, if you’d like more information about bladder cancer, you can contact the bladder cancer advocacy network at 1-888-901-2226. Thank you for listening, and we’ll be back soon with another interesting episode of Bladder Cancer Matters. Thanks again, Beáta.

Beáta Baker:

Thank you.

Voice over:

Thank you for listening to Bladder Cancer Matters, a podcast by the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network or BCAN. BCAN works to increase public awareness about bladder cancer, advanced bladder cancer research, and provide educational and support services for bladder cancer patients. For more information about this podcast and additional information about bladder cancer, please visit BCAN.org.