Got the Final Word today

madiarsg

Had a visit with the second urologist for his take on everything. This appointment was so much clearer and I left with a better understanding of it all. First of all, I do not have a hyperdense cyst; I have a Bosniak Category II cyst, which has a 15-20% chance of being cancerous. The urologist explained to me that, right now, given my medical history, doing surgery to even remove the cyst from the kidney (taking part of the kidney as well) is riskier than the chance of cancer. Being so young, there is a greater risk for complete renal failure and surgery complications that there is for cancer. However, they still want to follow it with ultrasounds every 6 months; every 3 months would be too soon and might not show any real change, and every year is too long, given that it did change from a Category I last July and grew .7 cm in that time. So it is growing, but slowly enough that there is not real concern or need to remove the cyst.

However, that does not mean that I am completely out of the woods. The scans had showed that I have two more small simple cysts, one on my right kidney, and one on my left, both only mm in size. Incidental, but still, a sign that not everything is hunky dory with the kidneys. It also looks like I have a small bowel malformation, probably due to my being a preemie baby, and that, along with having no gallbladder anymore, is causing the occasional stomach pains and my nausea/vomiting issues. Labs are all normal, just need to eat a better diet (no kidding). There is enough going on to be concerned about, but thankfully nothing is emergent as of yet. As for the pain in my right side/lower back, the doctor felt that it was probably a nerve from my upper back that got tweaked a little, and as sometimes happens you feel the pain at the endings of the nerves instead of the site of the injury (which I should have remembered, seeing as I just studied the nervous system summer term).

This doctor was sooooooo much better than the last one. Before going over everything, he had me tell him what was going on. He then showed me all the CT scans and ultrasounds from the last year, and walked me through each step of the tests, explaining along the way. He kept talking to me as a person, not trying to rush me out of the office. It was so nice, he was very understanding of my concerns, and said that he can see how, with the symptoms lately, that it very well could point to kidney cancer; however at this time the cyst did not fully bear out that, and removing it to do pathology could potentially damage my health more than it would help it. I am still very nervous about all of this, and I would rather have this thing out of me, but I understand their reasoning’s behind observing it. Let’s face it, with my luck, removing it now would cause complete renal failure. I’ve gotten pretty lucky with the cyst so far, I’m just going to keep praying that the good luck keeps coming my way for now. I will just have to will that chance of cancer completely away.

icemantoo

See, nothing to worry about
Glad to see that you do not have to join our group. Hopefully that will last forever.