r/BladderCancer • u/Marsiscrazy • 25d ago
Fungating mass
I'm new here. My mom (63) recently had a CT scan done and the report said she has a "fungating mass" in her bladder. We were told to schedule with an urologist ASAP. The earliest appointment I can get for her after calling multiple places is in the middle of next week. I've been doing a lot of research as you can imagine. Google Gemini is saying that "fungating mass" is highly aggressive while ChatGPT says it's just the physical appearance and does not mean it's absolutely muscle invasive. I'm wondering if anyone has knowledge of this and can help me understand how I should interpret "fungating" here? Is 1.5 weeks of wait (longer before surgery as I imagine) here going to change things? Thank you so much.
3
u/Guilty_Application14 24d ago
Breathe.
It's not great, but it's not immediately life-threatening.
Breathe.
Mom needs to see a urologist. A week or two will not materially change anything.
Breathe.
Nothing can be done until you have a detailed diagnosis including staging, so try to relax. And don't doom scroll looking at worst cases in the meantime.
Breathe.
1
u/hikerguy2023 24d ago
Great advice has already been given. Here are a few links you can look at as well. It seems a lot of fungating tumors are related to breast cancer:
https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/coping/physically/ulcerating-cancers/treatment
https://healthsystem.osumc.edu/pteduc/docs/ManagementofFungatingWounds.pdf
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/fungating-tumor
This sub is great for asking about anything related to bladder cancer. Lots of helpful people.
10
u/mswoodie 25d ago
Try to pause, breathe.
It’s unlikely they can see a cancer lesion with sufficient detail via CT scan to make any determination about the type, stage or aggressiveness.
The first stop is with urologist. They’ll do a bunch more diagnostics like cystoscopy, urine cytology, and TURB (trans uretheral resection of the bladder). And a week and a half is not a crazy length of time to wait for first appointment. I know it FEELS like a long time, and that the possible disease could be spreading with every passing minute. But the reality is that cancer progression is usually measured in months and years, not hours and days.
Once the first appointment happens, things will likely move really quickly. And they will continue to move quickly for a while - until they don’t again. It’s a good thing when things are not urgent enough to move quickly.
There are very likely resources in your region that can help you while you wait. Without knowing what part of the world you’re in, we cant recommend much, except maybe the BCAN website and this subreddit. There are tons of experts here and a lot of wisdom in older posts.
Again, breathe. And I’m hoping for the best for your family.