Bruce received compensation from Coloplast to provide this information. Each person’s situation is unique so your experience may not be the same.
A positive mental attitude helps
In 2008 I was diagnosed with bladder cancer and that led to a complete bladder and prostate removal, also, it led to me having an ileal conduit, which I have had for the past six or seven years. You have to adapt to a whole new lifestyle because, basically, your body has changed completely, so getting used to having an appliance or something that all out of a sudden wasn’t there, and how to manage that, that causes you concern. Everyone at that point kind of gets depressed because they say this is not the way I want to be. But you learn how to manage it and I think a positive mental attitude and some good instruction helps.
Setting goals during recovery
One of the things that I decided during the part of my recovery while I was lying in the hospital actually was; I said, I have a goal, I’m going to get back to normal as soon as I can so I’m going to go fishing and I’m going to go fly-fishing in Utah to begin with. And I went to Utah with my friend Warren and fished a day on the Provo River and then on the Green River in Wyoming. I met Warren a little better than thirty years ago, on the stream, and we have fished together pretty much ever since. Our travels have taken us to Utah, as was mentioned, we have also gone to his camp in New Brunswick to go salmon fishing.
Don’t be afraid to dream big!
We have finished a trip this past winter where we went to Patagonia, which was the trip of our lifetime. We had ten days on the water and caught a great number of fish and a thoroughly enjoyable time. We have a bucket list in mind of places that we would like to go. One of them that we have talked about is Iceland to fish for salmon; we have done a little bit of preliminary research on that. Another place, a more far reaching trip, would be to New Zealand.
