1 yr since nephrectomy ct shows hematoma in the place of kidney

Texas_wedge said:

Update and scan
Rae, do you ever go red (hair!) ?! I hardly recognised you. Glad to see that lovely smile.

Angie, has your Mom celebrated her 80th birthday yet? That would still be young in your circles and with you in her corner she'll live forever. What an immense amount of ground you've covered in leaving no stone unturned on her behalf! You've explored the entire spectrum. Has your homeopath continued to help? Just how many scans has your Mom had by now (many for her pancreas alone, if I'm remembering correctly?)? By now your Mom and I have a lot more in common than previously seemed to be the case!! That aside, I'll be very interested to hear of the opinion you'll be getting out of Sloan.

Thanks for the fascinating heads-up on progress with on oncoviruses. If you can find the original ref. that would be handy.

Thanks also for your enquiry after my situation. It seems to be nothing if not dynamic, with new nasty revelations showing up with increasing rapidity. I'm having a stock-taking morning in England. My Mother-in-Law died a couple of weeks ago which led to a dash to Johannesburg from which we returned on Wednesday to Aberdeen and I seem to have been driving most of the time since then (unfortunately not much of it on the golf course). I had a 500 mile drive yesterday to join my Wife and Daughter near London and will be driving for all of the next 4 days, visiting family in this part of the world before another 500m solo drive back home.

Still - (you asked about my golf) - I had one of the most enjoyable rounds in years on Friday at Carnoustie. After a week or two of rest the old weightlifting injury that's led to ' trigger-finger' in my left thumb was in abeyance and I was hitting dream drives. With a wind gusting around 40 m.p.h. we weren't bothered about scores - the good company of friends and the occasional glimpse of the sun were enough. (We could use the 'Texas wind-sock' here - 4 feet of heavy chain hung on a mast - when it's horizontal we say the wind's getting up. )

I'm getting CT with contrast every 3 months but they may elect to make it more frequent. I don't know about suv s - I have a host of questions to ask after the board has reviewed my case tomorrow morning. It will be a bit of a shock if I'm told I have idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis as well. It's never bothered my marathon running, rowing etc and I can't imagine what has caused "chronic scarring" - best guess would be farming pesticides but that's pure speculation.

My lymphadenopathy has increased dramatically in the past few weeks (regional nodes only, so far at least). The multi-disciplinary team discussion tomorrow may assess whether it's reactive or metastatic. The latter would obviously be very bad news but the major concern right now is a whole new encapsulated fluid accumulation in my abdominal wall and the radiology report labels this a "necrotic metastatic lesion" which is unexpected and unwelcome and probably explains an increasing discomfort around my lower right ribs. I was due to go to a nephew's wedding in WhitePlains in November but I guess that's now out of the question - c'est la vie I suppose.

Give your Mom my best wishes and stay in touch here.

Angie and TW
TW, I am a natural brunette but change my hair color like the wind changes direction - just because I can! (so yes, I tend to go some variation of red quite often).

So would your abdominal fluid be considered ascites? And you mentioned the lymphadenopathy might be reactive or metastatic - just wondering what they might be reactive from?

Angie, when I had my first CT scan July of 2011 (one year after my diagnosis and 9 months after surgery), the mass did light up. It was 4cm x 3cm (I had a typo in the previous post where I stated it was 5cm). I went to my doctors appointment and told "your cancer is back". I made an appointment with a new oncologist urologist that specializes in RCC and was told in no uncertain terms it was cancer and plans were made to start Sutent after the biopsy. He even said if the biospy showed it as not malignant that he would be highly skeptical. I had no reason to believe it wasn't cancer.

They now feel that as long as it is not growing that it is not cancer. If indeed your mom has hematomas or seromas, they will shrink (hopefully faster than mine). Also, I have no other signs of metastatic disease (no lymph involvement, no growing nodules, no new masses). So I continue with my scans every six months and hope my pain (and mass) goes away.

Texas_wedge said:

Update and scan
Rae, do you ever go red (hair!) ?! I hardly recognised you. Glad to see that lovely smile.

Angie, has your Mom celebrated her 80th birthday yet? That would still be young in your circles and with you in her corner she'll live forever. What an immense amount of ground you've covered in leaving no stone unturned on her behalf! You've explored the entire spectrum. Has your homeopath continued to help? Just how many scans has your Mom had by now (many for her pancreas alone, if I'm remembering correctly?)? By now your Mom and I have a lot more in common than previously seemed to be the case!! That aside, I'll be very interested to hear of the opinion you'll be getting out of Sloan.

Thanks for the fascinating heads-up on progress with on oncoviruses. If you can find the original ref. that would be handy.

Thanks also for your enquiry after my situation. It seems to be nothing if not dynamic, with new nasty revelations showing up with increasing rapidity. I'm having a stock-taking morning in England. My Mother-in-Law died a couple of weeks ago which led to a dash to Johannesburg from which we returned on Wednesday to Aberdeen and I seem to have been driving most of the time since then (unfortunately not much of it on the golf course). I had a 500 mile drive yesterday to join my Wife and Daughter near London and will be driving for all of the next 4 days, visiting family in this part of the world before another 500m solo drive back home.

Still - (you asked about my golf) - I had one of the most enjoyable rounds in years on Friday at Carnoustie. After a week or two of rest the old weightlifting injury that's led to ' trigger-finger' in my left thumb was in abeyance and I was hitting dream drives. With a wind gusting around 40 m.p.h. we weren't bothered about scores - the good company of friends and the occasional glimpse of the sun were enough. (We could use the 'Texas wind-sock' here - 4 feet of heavy chain hung on a mast - when it's horizontal we say the wind's getting up. )

I'm getting CT with contrast every 3 months but they may elect to make it more frequent. I don't know about suv s - I have a host of questions to ask after the board has reviewed my case tomorrow morning. It will be a bit of a shock if I'm told I have idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis as well. It's never bothered my marathon running, rowing etc and I can't imagine what has caused "chronic scarring" - best guess would be farming pesticides but that's pure speculation.

My lymphadenopathy has increased dramatically in the past few weeks (regional nodes only, so far at least). The multi-disciplinary team discussion tomorrow may assess whether it's reactive or metastatic. The latter would obviously be very bad news but the major concern right now is a whole new encapsulated fluid accumulation in my abdominal wall and the radiology report labels this a "necrotic metastatic lesion" which is unexpected and unwelcome and probably explains an increasing discomfort around my lower right ribs. I was due to go to a nephew's wedding in WhitePlains in November but I guess that's now out of the question - c'est la vie I suppose.

Give your Mom my best wishes and stay in touch here.

TW
TW.. you seem to have gotten right back on pace with your golfing! Hitting dream drives with that much wind sounds too good to be true! Go TW!! My husband's colleague did a par 3 recently on a hole that usually is par 5.

Mom has indeed turned 80 on Sept. 7th. She was sick with bronchitis but it was all good! Just to back up a little. She was diagnosed in January of this year with a 3 cm mass on her right kidney and at that time two lymph nodes by the kidney also lit up, so she had local mets. The surgeon went in, took the kidney and took the para node out in the center of the stomach. He did not take the two nodes near the kidney which is a mystery. They were about 1-1/2 cm's at that time i believe. The para node which did not show on the first scan was about 4cm itself at the time of surgery. So I believe it was good he took that one out at least, since it grew from not showing in the end of January to over 4cm when she had surgery in March. The original mass also grew quickly and in that short time was already 6 cms. Which is very, very fast!

She had only that one scan in January and then finally in August she had her second scan. Like I mentioned, she has been on the homeopathic meds from that BRILLIANT doctor who treats all kinds of cancer successfully all of this time and still continues on it. Now, this recent scan she still had the same two nodes as previously seen, they had grown only marginally, one is 2 cm and the other is 3 cm. So in nearly 7 months time the homeopathic med had totally slowed down the growth. Which is what it claims to do and even to stop it altogether. She has one small node about 1 cm in each lung. The homeopathic doctor thinks it may have been there before the surgery due to the para node being so large. He feels that the natural meds have helped slow it up and perhaps they are not still growing or growing slowly. It does take a little while for it to kick in. But given how they grew from January to March it stands to reason he is right about the meds working. THe problem is that she is on insulin and he feels insulin adds to the cancer cause since it is a hormone. I knew about this going in.

They wanted to put her on student right away but she refused. The reason being is that if the homeopathic meds are working, then starting the student would be unnecessary and safer. Her health is fairly good right now. She gained back all of the weight she lost and then some. Besides an unending cough (allergies, bronchitis) she seems to be doing fairly well. If you look at her, you wouldn't know she is sick. Has everyone gained their weight back or is that normally not an issue?

The oncologist has no idea she is on the homeopathic meds. He is sort of hinting that the growth is slow but won't admit it. He also says she looks very good and is surprised that she even gained weight. So he feels if she waits another 4 months to have a scan it still would be ok to start her meds then. She will re-scan in November towards the end.

TW I am confused! The mass is fluid accumulation but they label it a metastatic lesion? I wonder if they really know what anything is on the scans unless they go in and see for themselves. I mean look what happened with Rae-Rae. Which turned out well. I guess you will soon find out if they plan on going in for that to remove it. November is not too far off, perhaps this is all nothing and you can make the wedding. Let's see what they say. Please keep us posted. Praying for you!

I will search again for the original link about the virus that cures cancer!

I see I have rambled on here, didn't mean to. I blame it on this glaring migraine I have today Wishing everyone good thoughts. Remember to take one day at a time, stop to smell the roses, laugh and keep going!