I Dodged a Bullet

A typical day at home in the country. I set a ladder up to get on the roof, started up and the ladder snapped into. I fell back but my right leg went forward: compound fracture between my knee and foot.

I ended up going to Little Rock to get a rod put in it, and the day after surgery I went home. The doctor put me on blood thinner injections once a day for 2 weeks, and after 3 days I developed blood in my urine. I thought it was the injections. I called the doctor, who took me off the injections. A week later, I still had blood in my urine and was sent to a urologist, who used a camera to go in my bladder and found a tumor.

When I had the surgery, he found a second one, which he also removed. Now, I've finished the third of six weekly injections to build my immune system and I am cancer free.

I went through a lot of pain for three months from the cancer. I put on 50 lbs., and the second procedure to look in my bladder and biopsy the areas where the cancer was, which came back negative for cancer, involved another blood test which showed I have Type 2 diabetes.

But I am cancer free and I'm taking care of the diabetes. I thank God for everything that led to finding a cancer before it destroyed my bladder or any other issues that the cancer could have caused - and for finding the diabetes before it led to any thing worse.