Dr. Ferguson called with the pathology results. No cancer cells were found!!!! He called it preliminary since he will send the slides on to UCSF for analysis also. BCG treatments will begin in about two weeks and last for six weeks. So by later May he gets time off for good behavior! We are having beautiful Spring weather and he misses the golf course and taking money from and losing to his friends. He can start that in a couple of weeks.

Bill is feeling well and has to remind himself not to do too much so soon after surgery. Shorter, slower walks are okay. He will spend several weeks healing and then the plan is six weeks of BCG treatments again. We have tickets for the whole week of the US Open on the Monterey Peninsula and a suite with kitchen reserved (middle of June) and are really looking forward to that.

Today's surgery went well, lasted all of 30 minutes. The surgeon removed the one tumor and said the bladder looked really good. He put a stint in the left kidney ureter to keep it open--the tumor was very close and a buildup of scar tissue could block it. That will come out in a few weeks. In the meantime it can cause quite a bit of discomfort. We had the good news just before surgery. The pathologist at UCSF who reviewed the slides and report of high grade tumor from last month disagreed and classed it as low-grade papillary urothelial carcinoma. We all like that so much better! After the bladder has healed, Bill will have another 6-week round of BCG treatments without the interferon. That allows for a higher BCG dosage and the interferon can make one really sick. He had no reaction from the first BCG round last August/September. As Bill said this morning, maybe we are grasping for straws but we just might get to keep that damn bladder after all!

Bill will have more clean-out surgery on Wednesday, the 17th. Out-patient, we hope. Depending on what the doctor finds and does that day, the recovery will be about 4 weeks and then six weekly treatments of BCG plus interferon will be done. In the meantime he feels good--did major yard work yesterday and played golf today.

We have just returned to our hotel from consultation with the urological oncologist at UCSF. He concurred with Dr.
Ferguson's proposal to do more clean-out surgery followed by more BCG treatments perhaps with interferon, rather than remove the bladder at this time since the tumor is non-invasive. It is a beautiful sunny day in San
Francisco so we will go do something fun and then meet Greg and Alex for dinner at Town Hall. Home tomorrow after visiting Cousin Barry Smith in Berkeley.