My 12 month Kidney Cancer journey

JohnACS

For: Your edification

Me: 57 year old male, living in the US, in otherwise good physical condition

Feb 2018: First found out I had a possible 2 cm growth on my right kidney from a scan done during an emergency room visit for a kidney stone.

April 2018: After having some additional testing (with contrast MRI) done two different Urologists told me I needed to have a partial nephrectomy. I did not have insurance so I searched for a low cost partial nephrectomy. I don't believe such a thing exists in the US, and the international options were not appealing to me.

May2018: Learned that contrary to logic, the affordable care act requires insurers to accept people with pre-existing conditions. Though open enrollment was only once a year for a month around the beginning of the year, so I would have to wait 8 months to get insurance unless I meet one of the very narrow exceptions. One of the exceptions was to have moved recently moved to another State. So I moved to another State, applied and got enrolled in an insurance plan.

July 2018: Meet with a  Urologist/Surgeon covered by my new insurance company. As expected he recommended partial laprosopic nephrectomy with a Davinci Machine. Scheduled surgery.

August 2018: Had surgery. Removed 1.8x1.4x1.1 cm section. Uneventful surgery and recovery. Spent the night in the hospital. Was at home, walking slowly, taking care of myself, 24 hours later.

December 2018: follw up scan showed no reccurrence. Pathology report was contradictory. Histology indicated Oncocytoma. Micro Array Analysis indicated Renal cell carcinoma. After considerable debate I was diagnosed with Low grade Oncoytic Renal cell carcinoma. Which to me says that they are not sure if I had a carcinoma or a oncocytoma, so they split the difference. It probably does not matter from a practical position going forward as they removed the entire collection of odd cells and no reseeding is expected. But it is of interest to me as the very high RDW that I was experiencing prior to the surgery (indicative of megaloblastic anemic) has returned to normal, that suggests to me that the high RDW and other RBC disregulation, was a paraneoplastic manifestation of the tumor.

Recovery: I would say I am 98% recovered now. of the 6 holes they put in me, 3 are still slightly visible, the other 3 are not visible. My biggest problem with recovery was that I tore a groin muscle while running about a month after surgery.  I believe the tear resulted from weakened abnominal muscles. I was about 50% recovered from that tear 7 weeks hence, when I reinjured the same groin muscle after tripping.  I still have a less than 100% range of motion in that groin area.

 

icemantoo

Sounds like

---you are good for the long haul.

 

 

 

 

icemantoo

LanceHeal

Awesome!

Great to hear no recurrance. Hoping you see many many more like that. 

Deanie0916

Great news!

Keep pressing on going forward in life with this great news!