It has been some time since I last blogged anything. The last time was about the stress due to the sale of the place where I worked. That has ended as on February 27, 2014, I took my money and ran. I retired from working with the County. Ironically, the sale took place a few days later. Do I miss the place? Not at all.

WARINNG. IT MAY BE A BIT GRAPHIC FOR SOME AT THIS POINT.

On Saturday, March 15th, I woke up to find blood and clots in my urine. I called my doctor to let him know I was going to the Emergency Room at the local Hospital. I packed a bag and then drove myself in. I spent most of the day in ER waiting for and spending time with the Urologist on call. I spent some time in X-Ray to have an MRI. The doctor worked for awhile to try and get the clots out of my bladder. Eventually, I was admitted and sent to my room.

On Sunday morning, the doctor came in and told me he had me sceduled for Surgery early in the afternoon. Using a scope, he was going to look into my bladder to see what was going on. Monday morning, the catheter was removed and later dischared.

A few days later, I had a followup visit at the Doctors office. There I got the news. He found three (3) Tumors. Pathology identified the tissue samples as Cancer. As the doctor put it, a GOOD cancer as the tumors had not gotten thru the bladder into muscle. Had the tumors gotten thru to the muscle, then it would be the bad type which can spread. We then talked about treatment.

BCG was the treatment for bladder tumors. A solution of the medicine used to treat TB is used to treat the tumors. Once a week of six weeks, I went to the office where the Nurse would insert a catheter into my bladder then let a small amount of fluid into my bladder, only after she inserted some lubricant that also contained Lidocane to numb the Urethra so it didn't hurt. It was still a bit uncomfortable, especially in the area of the Prostate. After the cath was removed, I went home where I spent the next two hours laying around, turning 90 degrees every 15 minutes to make sure the bladder got coated as evenly as possible. A couple of weeks later, I returned to the office where the doctor, using a camera, looked into my bladder. One of the tumor sites during healing, grew what I'll say looked like fuzzy fingers.

I was then scheduled for Out Patient surgery in September where the doctor took care of the tissue. On the follow up visit, I got the news that I'm Cancer free and that my bladder responded so well to the BCG treatment, I won't have to go thru the booster treatments. To do so could cause problems later on. On my last office visit in December, one of the tumor sites looked a little funny but the doctor said it still could be healing. We'll know better after the next visit.

Back on Easter weekend of 2013, I tried for the first time an ecig made by Blue. I eventually bought one of the starter kits and cartriges as I decide to smoke them instead of a cigerette. I slowly finshed off the last four packs I had over a period of time so that by the end of April, I was no longer smoking a tobacco product. It was cheaper to go online and buy several boxes of cartriges and have a bigger selection of flavors to choose from. Online, I had the choice of nicotine levels, high, medium, low, and zero. In stores it was high. low, and zero. My Primary Care Doctor was happy that I was no longer smoking tobacco. He had nothing bad to say about the eCig usage.

I think it was after my first Out Patient cysto that I completely quit vaping all together. So since summer, I've not smoked. I simply saw the eCig as a way to cut down on Nicotine. I'll admit that occasionaly I do get the urge to smoke but it doesn't last long at all. Blues literature may say that their product isn't meant to as an aid to quit smoking but it worked for me.

Also, during the summer, I quit drinking so much diet soda's and diet tea. Now the only caffiene I allow myself is a 16 ounce mug of coffee in the morning. Amongst everything else, I also have high blood pressure. Now I drink plenty of water with those flavor enhancing drops. Plain water just don't cut it.

Since I'm a type 1 diabetic, I've gotten back into walking again. Every morning, I drive two miles to a local park and walk their 1.7 mile course. A road goes thru the park and the walk way crosses it twice. One one side of the road, there is a 0.7 mile course and on the other side is another .07 mile course which also has 0.3 mile section for straight line skating, tho I've not seen anyone skating.

The course I've set for myself takes me about 22 minutes to walk around once and end up back at my car. After a nature break and a drink of water, I take off again on a different course. I end up back at the car for quick drink then I set out on the skaters course and end up walking just over 3 miles in under an hour.

I've made friends with a couple of the dog walkers and after my work out, I walk a little with them. Since mid November I've been going back to the park and walking again. My record of walking in one day is over 15,000 steps which comes to 7.27 miles walked.

I'm also working to lose some weight and being a diabetic makes it a little more difficult to do.