Looking back, I wish I’d asked more questions when I was first diagnosed with bladder cancer in July 2010.

I have plasmacytoid urothelial carcinoma, a rare and very aggressive type of bladder cancer that spreads through the blood. But because my local doctors didn’t know that at the time, it led to not just one, but four separate recurrences — despite the tumor being entirely within my bladder and having my bladder surgically removed...