BCG Series 5 - First of 3 Treatements - September 19, 2010

Well if life is a pre-existing condition, then it probably follows logically that foolishness or stupidity is a pre-requisite. As you saw from the last post, Biohazard Man is back. And now belatedly I report on my first BCG treatment of Maintenance Series 5. I have had plenty of experience and over five months off, so I knew exactly what to do and what to expect. Or so one would believe. Unfortunately my data collection and experience increased my level of confidence. I simply knew this one would be easy-peasy, a cakewalk. And so it should have been.

Surely the trip to the doctor's office was normal. Beautiful weather, clear highways, no delays, and we arrived at 9:15 for my 9:30 appointment. We were in and ready to roll by 9:30, and Dr. Hopkins had no other patients to deal with. This was the first time we had done a visit on a Friday, and the place was very quiet. Ten minutes later the doctor came in and did the job. He and I were both a bit surprised that the catheter did not go in easily, and I can chalk that problem up to overconfidence mistake #1. The cystoscopy the week before had gone so well the I blew off the normal deep breathing exercises for the BCG, and it made things a bit more difficult. Not a big deal, but I made a note to add the breathing back in next time.

The BCG was instilled and we were back on the road home by 9:50. I was very thirsty, having forgotten how dehydrated one gets when abstaining from fluids, so I was careful not to hydrate too quickly. That worked OK, but during the second hour I forgot to double my intake as I normally do. This made the first urination much lower in volume than usual, but no discomfort. Even so, I should have taken the hint. I had my normal lunch of soup and toast, and then I sat at my desk and did emails and net surfing, drinking a good amount, but not really putting the effort into hydration. I declined to lie in the bed for this go-around, as the side effects were expected to be negligible. Checking the logs from six months ago, I was pleased to note the symptoms arrive right on schedule - mild as expected. Within 90 minutes they should be gone. So I continued sitting at the desk and sipping my iced tea. The symptoms, instead of clearing, became a bit worse. So I decided to move to the bed and hydrate more. Much to my surprise the symptoms stabilized, but did not decrease FOR 12 HOURS! Since there was no improvement I ramped up hydration in the evening, well after the special handling period.

This was too much and too late as it turns out. I finally went to bed exhausted at 11PM, and I was up every 60-90 minutes all night to pee like the proverbial racehorse. Rest and sleep? Forget about it! By early morning I was zombie-like, dehydrated, and sporting a headache. I spent most of Saturday resting and re-hydrating, all because I was too cocky to follow my own protocol. What was up with that? In a word - STUPIDITY!

The silver lining to this cloud is that the results do support the protocol of rest and super-hydration early in the process. But experimenting on oneself, especially unintentionally, is definitely not recommended.

The tables below show the results. The one on the left shows raw results (for readability), and the one on the right shows the evidence of under-hydration in red and outfall of over-hydration in blue. The side effects were more than the first round last time, and the squeamish may find the details to be about a 3 out of 10 on the gross-out scale, so one must click to enlarge the images below for those details. David F. in England tells me he made some similar errors in judgment during some of his BCG treatments, so I guess overconfidence breeds foolish behavior universally! I think we can all expect Biohazard Man to follow his protocol for the next two in this series...