November 23rd appointment

I had a visit with the doc on Tuesday. It was pretty uneventful. He admired his job on the healed incision and set me up to get a chest x-ray. The nurse drew blood and I got to pee in a cup.

I was surprised to learn I was able to go straight to the imaging center to get the chest x-ray. As that was being done, I questions the tech about how much coverage the x-ray actually was getting of my chest. She said from the rib cage up. I thought that to be odd since my entire left kidney was not going to be x-rayed as well as my bladder and I'm sure other organs...I thought I would be getting a CAT scan but I'm not a doctor. I call the office next week and find out more.


On another note, I have been working out pretty hard and running a lot. I am coming along well. I have a half marathon trail run in March.

Cancer Free

It has almost been 3 weeks since my surgery.

I can say that I am feeling really good. I am bay far not at 100% but I hope to be there soon. I still have alot of pain around the muscle at the incision site.

I was told that I am cancer free just before leaving the hospital. I don't have another follow-up appointment until August 26th. I believe at that time we will decide if I am ready to go back to work and what the plan is for the follow-up care and to watch if "it" decides to come back. Just from the information I know at this point, I am going to have to see the doctor about every 3 months for some time. I'm not real sure what this will consist of other than blood tests and maybe an occasional scan.

All of the support and prayers have been amazing. I never knew I had that many people who cared. I really brings your spirits up. I don't know that I can ever repay you.

I will post again after my appointment on the 26th.

Wednesday is the day

Doctor's appointment was pretty good today I guess. I had some bad news and some really good news (doctor's words) The bad news is that I am going to have to have surgery...which I already knew and the really good news is that they caught this so early that I have a 90% chance of getting rid of it with this surgery. That's not as good as the odds I wrote about yesterday but I feel OK with it.

I was given some choices, one of which was to have a partial nephrectomy, which is just the removal of the tumor from the kidney, or total nephrectomy which is removal of the entire kidney. Due to the placement of the tumor, the doctor was leaning toward the total nephrectomy and I agreed. I was wanting that prior to knowing the placement of the tumor anyway.

My other option was to wait 2 more weeks and have a laproscopic surgery or he can do an open surgery tomorrow (Wednesday). Well, some people think I'm crazy but I was already leaning toward the open surgery so I chose that. Looks like I'm headed to the hospital first thing in the morning. I can't wait. I really was not looking forward to waiting another couple of weeks to get this taken care of.

Anyway that's all for now. I'll be back in a few days...

I want to make this clear...

I would like to make it clear that this cancer is not going to take my life any time soon or ever if I have anything to do with it. It is my understanding, from what I know (which is not very much), that this is a fairly small tumor (2.2cm to be exact).

Some of the statistics I have read give me a 95% chance of being alive in 5 years....Wow so I have a 5% chance of dying in the next 5 years from this disease...I don't know if I like that or not...No really, I think those stats are for old people who are closer to dying anyway...I am 100% sure I will not die from this disease in the next 5 years...I can't promise I'll still be alive if some other thing may pop up, but neither can any of you.

I think it's great how many people have taken time out of their lives to write to me, call me, and pray for me. I really brings my spirits up. I can tell you that this is all that has been on mind. You can't get it out of your head. Its a weird feeling like I have some type of disease...Oh wait I do...But yeah that's how it feels. I read somewhere that it's like having an alien in your body and you just want it to be taken out. I can totally relate to that. I can't wait for it to be taken out. This past week, all I can think about is those little cancer cells taking over more and more good cells as I sit around and eat bon bon's. I hope I go to the doctor tomorrow and he sets up the surgery appointment this week. I wouldn't complain one bit.

First blog

I have never been one to "open up" about my feelings and have in depth conversations about "me". I don't know why but that is how I am. I feel like what is happening in my life at the present time warrants some type of release so I thought I would start a blog....

So what's happening to me you ask? Well, I was just diagnosed with kidney cancer. I think it's kind of interesting how I found out. Here's the story.

I hurt my back pretty bad several weeks ago. I was almost completely immobile. I went around like that for a couple of days before finally going to the doctor. Doc gave me a shot and some muscle relaxer and sent me on my way. That was fine by me. All I wanted was the muscle relaxer anyway.

So, about a month or so goes by and my back is still kicking my ass. I have to carry pretty heavy equipment around at work and I was having some trouble doing my job without pain so I was thinking I may have injured my back a little worse than what the muscle relaxer was capable of taking care of. I went back to the doc.

Doc this time gives me another scrip for a different muscle relaxer and sent me to get a MRI. So at this point I have already had more medical care than I have probably ever had since I was born but I really didn't have any major concerns.

A day or so goes by and I get a call to schedule a CT Scan. I thought this was pretty strange and the lady scheduling the appointment just said I needed to call the doc's office so I did. The nurse said they found a spot on my kidney and they wanted to get another look at it with the CT Scan. I was told this was unrelated to my back injury so naturally I was kind of concerned.

I had the CT scan the next day and had to wait the weekend until my next follow-up appointment. I knew something was going on when the doctor came in the room with the nurse. The doctor said there was a concern for some disease I had never heard of called Renal Cell Carcinoma. The doctor said he didn't think it was anything more than a cyst on my kidney but I could see it in his eyes there was more too this. Doc then sends me to see a Urologist.

My first impression of the Urologist was that he really didn't seem very concerned at all. He scheduled an ultrasound of my kidney. I showed up for the ultrasound and had it done. I asked the girl doing the ultrasound what she thought and she told me right away that she thought it was more complex than a cyst. I think from that point on I knew what the outcome was going to be. From the reading I had done up to this point I knew that a kidney tumor is rarely benign.

I didn't have another appointment with the Urologist, the nurse just called to schedule a biopsy for me.

I had the biopsy last Friday and again had to wait all weekend to find out the results. Monday came around and I called the office that morning. (I didn't want them to forget about me!)
I had to leave a message and by lunch I still had not received a call back. I simply drove up to the office and demanded to hear some news. You would have thought I was some kind of terrorist showing up without an appointment. I was told they had no results and I would be contacted when the results come in. I was called later that evening and was told the results.

I have since been set up for another appointment with the Urologist next week on Tuesday. Hopefully I will be able to get a lot of information and get this ball rolling.


So now it begins...