Kidney Cancer
After coming back from a vacation, I had what I thought was a persistant UTI. Went to the walk-in clinic and was given a prescription for it and was told that if it doesn't go away to make an appointment with my primary care physician. Low and behold it didn't go away.... My PCP talked it over with me and decided to also get me checked for a kidney stone. Turns out I did have a kidney stone but I also have kidney cancer. Aug 12th is when I got these results.
I do not have a family history of cancer. If it wasn't for the kidney stone, I wouldn't have found out about this. I had NO symptoms. No odd lump or tenderness on my lower back. Wasn't pissing blood. Nothing. I may be one of the few people that has ever been thankful for having a kidney stone. That damn thing is helping to save my life.
From this point it's been a whirlwind of activity. Within 20 days, I had met with a surgeon, had more tests done, gotten additional CT scans done, gone on LOA from work, and went under the knife to have my left kidney completely removed. The tumor was massive. To put it into perspective, your kidney might be the size of computer mouse or a bar of soap. The tumor that I had was the size of a cantaloupe. There was nothing to be done to save my left kidney so my surgery was a radical nephrectomy. This means that I have to now live with just one kidney and therefore I have to be verrrryyyy careful for it. Lower my salt intake, keep my weight down, don't develop diabetes, and absolutely make sure to keep it protected from physical trauma.
The recovery from the surgery sucked in new ways that I didn't realize it would suck. Every damn movement you do involves using your core muscles. Well my core muscles had been sliced in several locations for the surgery so I couldn't do much of anything with having pain lance through me. The gas pains from them blowing me up like a balloon for the surgery sucked. The pain medicine didn't really stop the pain it just made where I didn't care about the pain. Well that and they made me constipated. I'm glad to be alive but more importantly I'm glad I'm almost physically healed from that hot mess.
The shitty part is this is just part 1 of what is likely a 3 part journey. Yipee, they removed the big ass tumor they saw on the scans.... Doesn't mean they got all the cancer. Little fucking cancerous cells might be and likely are still in me. Hence the next phase of this process. I get to start immunotherapy now. I get to live with a year of very invasive tests and procedures to help make sure I beat cancer. It also means that every thing I do during this next year might be my last chance to do that thing. Hopefully, I beat this son of a bitch but I've also got some scary statistics about survival rates hanging over me....
Some of the anxiety and worry around this is making sure that those who'll miss me if I die, know how much they mean to me. Or to be more bleak, if I'm no longer here I hope that they had enough time with me to know me and I to know them. FUCK!!! I've got kids. Colin and Margo. There is never a good time to lose a parent but I always hoped they would get to face this possible loss as adults and not as children.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that the odds are in my favor. And if things go badly for me, I'll have months or maybe years to say my goodbyes. Tomorrow is never promised to anyone. Etc, etc, etc... Those platitudes are great when they are abstract ideas. Not so comforting when they are a reality that I'm facing.