Recovering from radical nephrectomy

Male, 55 years old. Had my left kidney removed on 7/24/12 withy 9.5 cm tumor and am doing very well. It was the "larger" surgery where there was a big incision and doctor had to remove part of a rib. I am, however, doing quite well. In fact, only a week and a day later I returned to work (desk job) and had very little discomfort sitting at desk. I don't know if this made a difference or not but I was in pretty good shape before the surgery and then I "trained" specifically for a few weeks before the surgery with running, weights, basketball, abdominal wall and other exercises. I am now going on three weeks out and feeling quite good, but the doc, of course, won't let me do much of anything like I was doing so I walk/hike a lot. Washed and waxed my car yesterday, which was a big deal considering all the restrictions. I am now doing 2.0 miles on a treadmill several times a week. My goal is to play basketball by end of year and ice hockey early next year (my normal activities).

Doc could not remove all lymph nodes he wanted to remove because of their proximity to arteries/spinal cord, but the one he did remove showed positive for cancer. Prior to kidney removal I had received six IL-2 treatments starting in September, 2011 which incredibly cleared up the metastasized cancer cells in my lungs, but could never shrink the kidney cells completely - and apparently did not clear up the lymph nodes. Met with oncologist 8/17/12; he is precribing no further treatments, just wait and watch. It is possble that my body's response to the IL-2 treatments will be to keep whatever remaining cancer I have in check. This would be trully remarkable as only a year ago I was in RCC/stage IV/ with major metastasis to lungs. Some would have given me less than a year. But as of today, I feel absolutely wonderful. I thank God every day.