Dave Lane

As some of you already know, my father in-law, Dave has been diagnosed with cancer. It's in his bladder. He went in last year for a couple of different surgical procedures in hopes that they could get all of the bad from his body.


It came back! :( The doctors say bladder cancer is usually found in people who have smoked cigarettes their entire lives or been exposed to second hand smoke on a daily basis. Well, Dave has NEVER smoked a ciggy, but he worked as a contractor for most of his life, and there are a lot of construction workers who smoke!

This past week he went in for another check up and they found one of his tumors is an "in situ" tumor. Thanks to medterms.com... An "in situ" tumor is one that is confined to its site of origin and has not invaded neighboring tissue or gone elsewhere in the body. The term "in situ" is borrowed from the Romans. It means "in the natural or normal place" and, in the case of cancer, it is good news. It indicates that the tumor cells are still where they originated. They have neither entered neighboring tissues nor have they metastasized afar.

Well, that's a little bit more relieving!

Dave is undergoing a BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guerin)treatment for the next 6 months. From the research I've done for my own understanding, BCG is a chemical which is supposed to stimulate an immune response or cause inflammation of the bladder wall that destroys cancer cells within the bladder. So, it basically causes an infection in the bladder which is supposed to fight and hopefully kill the cancer. BCG has been used to treat stage 0 and I (superficial) cancer but is used most commonly to prevent the return (recurrence) of superficial bladder cancer. It is most often used after cancer has been removed from the bladder using transurethral resection (TUR) surgery.

Dave has been diagnosed with stage 1 cancer. I guess there are 4 or 5 different stages? I'm not too sure on that one, but Jeff and I are really glad it's not as bad as it could be. Dave is in surprisingly high in spirits and has such a positive attitude when he talks about it. He's just doing what he can, dealing with it day by day.