Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Bladder mass malignant; Tomas starts series of tests
CEBU City Mayor-on-leave Tomas Osmeña was confirmed to be suffering from urinary bladder cancer, but City Hall sources would not confirm or deny reports that it is on its third stage.
City Administrator Francisco Fernandez confirmed yesterday that while still in Cebu, Osmeña was already diagnosed as having a malignant mass in his bladder at the Chong Hua Hospital last Oct. 4.
Osmeña, 60, is currently in Boston, Massachusetts and was scheduled to start a series of tests at the Massachusetts General Hospital last night, or 8:45 a.m. Boston time.
The tests would determine if the cancer has spread to other organs, which his doctors in Cebu could not confirm at the time of his confinement.
“He has a malignant mass in the urinary bladder, which in layman’s terms is cancer. If it’s limited to the bladder, then there’s no problem. But (his) Cebu (doctors) can’t determine if it has spread to the other organs, that’s why he was advised to get a second opinion in Singapore or in the US,” Fernandez told reporters yesterday.
Not prostate
He corrected reports and said that it is not prostate cancer.
When asked if the information that the mayor has stage 3 cancer was true, the city administrator would neither confirm nor deny it.
Sun.Star Cebu checked with Osmeña his condition, and in a text message, he said: “I feel the same as the day I left. Thanks.”
He also sent Fernandez the same message late yesterday afternoon, but went on to say: “I miss Cebu but I don’t miss the job—especially knowing you guys are on the ball, I can take it easy. It’s exactly 5:45 a.m. in Boston, arrived last night from New York. My tests start 8:45 this morning.”
The results of today’s test in Boston will determine the final decision on “what will happen to him (Osmeña), what treatment he will have and whether he goes to surgery or not.”
Osmeña is said to have noticed for the first time the signs of his ailment during the campaign period in May last year, when he saw blood in his urine.
“But they thought it was just a result of so much stress from all the campaign, because that was election time. And after the elections, nawala ra and they forgot all about it. I assume it recurred lately, which prompted him to see the doctor,” said Fernandez.
‘Don’t worry’
In text messages, Osmeña also asked the Mayor’s Management Team not to worry about him, saying that he will manage. He also asked them to consider his absence as “another chance in your development.”
Whatever happens to him, he said, he will not lose faith in the MMT.
“It’s like an automobile. It’s not the age but the mileage that counts. I don’t have any regrets whatever the outcome. I have gone much farther than most who die of old age. There is a difference between being alive and living,” he added.
Fr. Ernesto Javier, rector of the Sacred Heart School-Jesuits, was among those who discussed the disease with the mayor’s wife, Margot, shortly before they left for New York last Oct. 8.
Javier, a urinary bladder cancer survivor, said he assured the Osmeñas that from his experience, bladder cancer is operable and curable.
He said, though, that one will need to have a lifestyle change to recover from the disease.
His cancer was on its first stage, which means that the cancer cells were confined to the lining of his bladder. Although there was no mass found, his symptoms were the same as the mayor’s.
Survivor
“I was diagnosed in 1995 and thank God, it’s been 13 years and it has not recurred…I talked to Margot twice and I told her I just wanted Tommy to know that the survival rate for this kind of cancer is high. All cancer types are dangerous but bladder cancer is not the most dangerous, it’s more easily treated,” he said in a phone interview.
Immediately after being diagnosed in February 1995, Javier left to seek treatment at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where Osmeña consulted several doctors last week.
Javier said that doctors at the cancer center eventually found that the cancer has spread to his ureter, which required surgery and chemotherapy.
He said he never smoked but he enjoyed drinking wine and coffee.
“My doctors in the US said that cancer is treatable if we get it out early. And once it’s treated, we have to change our diet and lifestyle so there is less stress and we have to exercise to stay healthy,” he told Sun.Star Cebu.
Since then, Javier has maintained a low-fat, low-salt diet. (LCR)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (October 15, 2008 issue)
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