Possible RCC with upcoming surgery

NanoSecond said:

Strength Training

Hi Fox,

I think what you say makes a lot of sense.  And I ran out of my Percocet perscription months ago.

But have you any advice for those of us (me) who intellectually realize the importance of strength or conditioning training but just can't motivate themselves to start in the first place (let alone keep at it)?

Thanks for any thoughts on this.

Some people are jocks. Some are not. It is difficult to motivate someone. You have to find something that you like. And most people need a buddy system. Some like weights, running, hiking, bicycling or swimming. I fall into the category where I don't need a gym or anyone else to motivate me. Like you do with nutrition. Me on the other hand never met a pizza and a pitcher that I didn't like. In days of old when I wanted to run my first marathon, I would tell everyone that today I was gonna run 10 miles and tomorrow I would run 5, etc. My big mouth made me stick to my verbal contracts as I didn't want to look like a bigger jerk than I already am.

pinkstar said:

Thank you Texas!!! I think my

Thank you Texas!!! I think my back ground forces me to tell it all. hahaha...I am honest & I have nothing to hide. Although, this is probably what makes me a good nurse. I fear the lesion may be RCC, which if it is I would be considered stage 1b (if my memory serves me correctly). I am connecting this experience with my biological father as we were nearly the same age at the time of surgery (he had his done in his early 30's & I found this in my late 30's). Health wise, I tend to take more after him than my mother (THANK GOD). I have always said, he may not have been the father he should have been but he definitely could be what saves my life.

With all the physical research I have done on RCC, I don't believe I have it. Could be denial but I call it surviving.

I totally agree with you 100%!!! Regardless of it's nature, it needs to be removed. This whole thing is just weird & somewhat of may be a medical mystery but I am grateful for this site. If this experience makes me a better woman, daughter, sister, friend & nurse then I am indeed the winner. No matter what the mass is I will remain on this site, if just to offer support.

Here goes, this is my second go round with RCC as my new friends will tell you. I am sort of a tell it like it is person. My RCC definitely has a hereditery factor to it as my paternal grandmother had her kidney removed in the 50's when she was about 50. She went on to live well into her 80's with no recurrance. In Dec 2002 I was dx with a large tumor in my left kidney (can't remember the cm but basically filled the kidney itself). I had a left nephrectomy, the tumor was encapsulated totally, sent on my way in life with observation for the past 10 yrs. I am a retired Paramedic so I also have medical knowledge. I also love genealogy and when I first diagnosed I just happened to hook up with a guy who came down from my Grandma's direct line and since he was still in Pa I casually asked if he knew if any of our relatives had ever had kidney cancer...he said I was going to twilight zone because he had it when he was 36. He thought it was Viet Nam but now wondered when he heard about me and Grandma. You said your Dad had his kidney removed but you were unable to find out why..my guess would be RCC. That said, it is just my humble opinion and is directed only for good for you. That is why we are here..and it so strange the parallels I see with you and me, LOL....Anyway, as a medic I obviously totally abused my back as nurses so often do to...so for the past three years I have had numbness, cramping, weakness in my left leg and foot...I have extreme pain trying to walk on hard or uneven surfaces and stairs are the pits. My neurologist has been trying to get me set up with surgery for several years but the only thing that showed up on my original myleogram was a small disc bulge at L4...no one would do the surgery..We were both so frustrated because my symptoms are classic for impingement etc in Lumbar spine...so in Sept we decided to do another myleogram...had it the same day Hurricane Sandy showed up...I always have a copy of the a report sent to my Primary Care Dr. regardless of who ordered the test. As soon as she received the report she had her office call and told me to come in that week...the spinal scan showed two possible lesions in my right and only kidney..she sent me for a sono that confirmed them and they suggested a CT...at this point I was leaving for 10 days for my cabin in VT for Thanksgiving..she said they would get the CT approved while I was gone...well, on the way home from VT to MD I got extremely sick (and being a medical person I naturally knew I could ride it out...don't we always, LOL) Well after a few days I knew I had to get to the DR and like you I was admitted to hospital for severe diverticulitis...something I never had before and hope never to have again...in the ER they told me they needed to do abdominal CT so I reminded them about the lesions and they included them in their exam of the CT also. I was in the hospital for 4 days. They did confirm the tumors were more than likely RCC but at least still small..but if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck it probably is one...they hooked me up with an awesome Urology Oncologist I saw as soon as I got out..he pretty much agreed with the finding but wanted me to have a 2nd opinion and he said he wanted me to see the Dr that was the best of the best in robotic surgery to see if my tumors could be removed and still have a functioning kidney etc.  So now I am faced with a very serious dilemma..I am 62 yo, right now my only kidney is functioning fine..do we watch the tumors and see if they grow or start to effect my kidney function or do we do surgery and hope all goes well but I know that the risks are the kidney not functioning well after surgery,approx 1% chance I could end up on dialysis or even need a transplant...it was a lot to consider. When I met with the surgeon he was awesome and he said one thing to me that above all else made me opt for the surgery...even though they are very small and appear encapsulated..small tumors can rupture just as easily as larger ones..they were in a good place and he said get them out now because it will cause the least trauma to your kidney and give you the best odds for it to function normally...So here I am..almost a month post op...(Surgery was Feb 8 & I went home Feb 9) Knock on wood my kidney is functioning great...pissing like a racehorse as the saying goes...You are lucky to have two kidneys and with surgery you could still wind up with say 1 and 3/4....I hope you are right and it isn't RCC but I feel like God or whatever people want to refer has allowed me to beat this monster twice for a reason...Kidney Cancer Awareness is what I want to bring to table and teach people about and get it out there like Breast and Colon Cancer and I especially want to focus on the possible hereditery aspect...hopefully fight so that people who are predisposed to it can get routine checks like colonoscopies and mammagrams etc...covered by insurance...I am going to be straight forward and honest with you...have the surgery and then get on down the road with your life...We need good nurses and I can tell you are one...My Dad died this Past May 8 from Stage 3 Pancreatic Cancer...from Feb til he died my sister and I cared for him..She is 56 and she was in her last semester of Nursing School, doing clinicals and working full time and somehow she made and graduated on May 23..She is now an ER Nurse at the same ER she worked as a Unit Clerk for 20 years...She is this kind of Nurse I would want for my family and you sound a lot like her...we need you out...this is just a minor blip in things...I know it is hard for us tough girls to think about ourselves(really, really hard, LOL) but sometimes we just have to do what we have to do...I hope only the best for you no matter your decision...

Texas_wedge said:

Strength training

Neil, now you're into my bag!! (not referring to golf bag).  I've kept in pretty good shape all my life and it's probably helped a lot in recovery from my 2 open ops and in handling my current chemo well.  It also contributes to enjoyment of life - everything is easier and less fatiguing.  More things are within one's scope (at 70,  I can still enjoy playing two rounds of golf in a day - weather permitting!).  

[I've never taken anything very seriously but I have competed in Uni teams in three different sports (plus snooker and chess both of which burn a lot more calories than most people would imagine!).  I have an Award in Physical Education from Edinburgh Uni. and am a qualified weight-lifting instructor and referee.  In maturer years I've run a number of half and full marathons, the last being the London Marathon of 2,000, when I was 57.  I've written training schedules for people for general health and for specific sports in the past. Reading books on exercise physiology was a bit of a hobby for a number of years.  All of this is a long, long time ago, but I'm sure I'm still reaping the benefits of that lifestyle, all these years later.]

So,  in all conscience, I feel that I can make some comments that might be of use to you. 

The first is that current wisdom and practical experience shows that massive gains (of all kinds) can be made from exercise without much time spent.  More of that in a moment. 

The next thing to say is that whatever you elect to do to reap the benefits, it should be something you actually enjoy doing.  There's an important rider to this: people are often astounded by how much they can actually enjoy exercise or sports that they couldn't have envisaged deriving pleasure from. 

Once you know how much you stand to gain it becomes easier to go for it and the benefits then act as a big incentive for continuing.  If you've in the past been more geek than jock you probably won't have had occasion to come across the striking papers that show huge pay-offs for ageing academics from a sensible programme of increased physical exercise.   They not only feel better but get round to completing stalled projects, finishing pieces of neglected research, publishing papers they otherwise wouldn't have had the energy to do and so on. 

There's no doubt that if you want to keep your cognitive function in shape what you need is not so much 'brain gyms' but the real thing.  You will derive more mental benefit from physical exercise than you possibly can from simply performing mental tasks to try to keep your brain from declining.  The scientific evidence is there and you don't have to look hard to find the physiological explanations.

Currently there's much debate about two old observations, both sporting shiny new acronyms - HIT and NEAT.  You can easily find innumerable treatments of each and this short piece gives a little insight and a rough idea about them.

http://www.ultimate-exercise.com/hitandneat.html

Next,  I must confirm the appropriateness of the subject line of your message because it's important to realise that you get more medical and health benefit (and in far less time) from strength training than from aerobic conditioning and you get more spillover aerobic benefit from the right kinds of strength training than vice versa.  (Obviously I'm talking here about formal 'exercise' rather than sports - not suggesting you need to take up hammer-throwing rather than cross-country running!).  Thus, progressive resistance exercise is better than other forms.  Please note that I'm far from knocking the merits of e.g. tai chi, hatha yoga Pilates etc, which all have considerable gains to offer, but ideally in addition to strength training.

NEAT v HIT :   The former (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) is really addressed to those wanting to shed unwanted weight and/or to keep reasonably healthy.  It's essentially just a matter of recognising that BMR (basal metabolic rate, as I'm sure you know) is significantly raised by a very low level of activity so that keeping 'on the go' all day, with normal sorts of activities, even down to restlessly fidgeting, will achieve the desired results, so long as there's enough of it.  Using a pedometer or modern version (e.g. a Fitbit)  and aiming to do ten thousand steps a day, for instance, is putting it on a more organised basis and underwriting carrying it out, but it doesn't necessitate such an approach.

However, what I'm advocating, for big pay-off with a small investment of time, is HIT - high intensity training.  There are variants of this label and acronym but they amount to the same thing - short bursts of taxing activity interspersed with brief rest periods.  This is the familiar concept of "interval training" espoused by both track and distance running athletes and also the rep and set training practised by weight-lifters, and strength athletes generally, and akin to the 'heavy duty' schedules followed by some bodybuilders.

It hardly needs saying that you need to be at a certain minimum level of health and fitness before embarking on it for real, and need the approval (or rather the non-embargo) of your docs before doing it, unless you're already working out at a decent standard of fitness.  

There is a lot of mythology surrounding the topics of 'warming-up' (which is fundamentally a bogus notion) and 'cooling down'  which is really a misnomer for not stopping vigorous exercise abruptly and incurring venous pooling etc, which is better avoided.  There's also the vexed topic of doing stretching exercises before exercise - done too enthusiastically (especially if ballistic movements are involved) it has been shown to do more harm than good by causing more injuries than it prevents.   Accordingly, significant time savings are achieved by not wasting time on long rituals of warm-up and stretching.  (Good treatises on the subject  will counsel all that's required.)  This, coupled with the small amount of actual workout time required, comes down to an astonishingly tiny time requirement even for absolutely optimal results.  We're talking about a real transformation in a matter of, approximately, a quarter to half an hour three times a week.  (Just by the way, I've had for a number of years now a book on the  1 minute Workout for Golfers - based on the same principle of very hard very brief exercise, utilising what lifters would term 'negatives'.)

If you want to delve a little into it, you could, I don't doubt, find a number of good books on the topic.  You may recall one I mentioned I read a few weeks ago which I found excellent. It's by a molecular physiologist and lecturer at one of the Universities here, in Dundee and called "The High Intensity Workout" - authors Dr. John Babraj and Dr. Ross Lorimer and is a brief, inexpensive paperback, packed with useful info.  You would enjoy it for its exposition of the relevant science and would, I believe, be persuaded of the merits of the mitochondrial enhancements that are at the heart of the value of this kind of workout.   The workout schedules given are very simple and require no equipment if you do the running version (e.g. a small series of 6-second flat out sprints up a suitable hill, interspersed with gentle strolls back down again) or swimming.   They are most conveniently carried out on a bicycle ergometer, elliptical cross-trainer or such-like, or a good quality rowing machine such as the ones on offer in commercial gyms, university gyms, sports centers and country clubs.

Those are my immediate thoughts on this but as you can maybe guess this is a bit of a hobby-horse of mine and I'd be very happy to discuss it further should you feel any desire to do so.   (If not, then I would at least say don't follow the advice of George Bernard Shaw which was, very roughly,  'Whenever I feel an overwhelming need to take vigorous exercise I immediately go and lie down until the feeling passes off.')

Tex,

Many, many thanks for your detailed response.  I am going to print it out and study it.  I may have some time to do that now, since, for the first time this year, we here in the DC area are "supposed" to get hit with a major snow and wind storm.  If so, as is typical, we will likely lose power and internet access.  Having been through this drill several times already - I have a generator that will provide us with enough juice to power our water pump (we have well water), the hot water heater, the furnace, and some lights and electronics.  But what I can't control is access to the internet - so I may go silent for a while.

I do plan to pick your brain further though.  One thing that I did enjoy in my younger daze was canoeing and rowing.  I notice that is an activity that you still enjoy - so maybe I should start there.

Thanks again to you and Fox for getting me started on something that has bugged me for several years now - too much geek and not enough jock...

-N

Texas_wedge said:

Strength training

Neil, with Fox and Gary in the offing, I fear some awful ribbing about geek-straps may be in the wind - that last sentence of yours is really asking for trouble, though maybe you're knowingly tossing them some bait?!

If you are going to re-start some exercise activity, rowing is near perfect.  It's non load-bearing and non-impact, like swimming and, also like swimming (actual swimming, not just paddling about) it works all the major muscle groups.  The Concept2 machines are the ones the Olympic crews and serious club oarsmen the world over use for out of season, off-water training, and are a good simulation (minus the wind, sun, rain and the feathering of the oar).   I've had a few slightly less good days in the last week and have played a few rounds of golf and taken some lovely walks with my Wife, but not rowed. On resumption, maybe tomorrow, I'm going into HIT again, with cycles of 30 secs flat out on maximum resistance followed by 4 minutes of "active rest" - keeping moving by gentle paddling.  The senior author of the book I mentioned agrees that rowing is a suitable activity though I speculated that the parameters may need experimentation given the nature of rowing - stroke followed by a break before the next 'catch'.

It's inspiring to know that John Babraj is himself an ultra-marathoner.  I asked him the other day, whether he's run the Comrades Marathon in South Africa (more than twice the length of a Marathon).  He hasn't but he mentioned that he's going to run the Devil of the Highlands trail race of 43 miles which I guess might be even tougher - the record is 5 hours 22 mins and 54 secs. and there's s time limit of 12 hours!  What's so inspiring is that he runs things like that off HIT training and told me that he never runs more than about 7 miles in his normal training sessions.  That's mitochondrial optimisation for you!

Tossing them bait? Of course you must realize that I was just tossing them some red meat.  I now have plently to toss around due to my diet. 

Thanks for the follow-up.  I am glad my rowing idea has merit.

I should point out what I have been doing so far though.  Aside from walking at least 1 hour each day (which I know does not count).

At the risk of touchy history - my wife and I starting taking Irish Dancing Lessons.  This is my little inside joke directed to my metastatic femur buddies.  Just my way of trying to thub my nose at 'em, so to speak.

Of course they now get the last laugh watching me on the dance floor. I have rudely discovered I can't even count to 3, let alone 8.

Tres embarassing.

NanoSecond said:

Strength Training

Tossing them bait? Of course you must realize that I was just tossing them some red meat.  I now have plently to toss around due to my diet. 

Thanks for the follow-up.  I am glad my rowing idea has merit.

I should point out what I have been doing so far though.  Aside from walking at least 1 hour each day (which I know does not count).

At the risk of touchy history - my wife and I starting taking Irish Dancing Lessons.  This is my little inside joke directed to my metastatic femur buddies.  Just my way of trying to thub my nose at 'em, so to speak.

Of course they now get the last laugh watching me on the dance floor. I have rudely discovered I can't even count to 3, let alone 8.

Tres embarassing.

 

Neal, I have no problem with you being our caddie. My only problem is with your choice of exercise. My wiife,Alice, already spends a good portion of the day dancing around the center island in our kitchen to all types of music. Now she thinks Irish dancing sounds like fun??? Oh well, maybe my Irish Jig will be better than my power fade.

NanoSecond said:

Irish Dancing

Gosh, I am still trying to figure out what the difference is between a Jig and and a Reel...

The whole enterpirse is about as hard as learning how to gauge a good chip shot.  But then again, if you and Alice can master it in your kitchen* then you I should think you will be fully prepared for a most memorable victory dance when you score your next Hole-In-One. 

 

*[Extra credit awarded for mastering any steps on top of your butcher-block.]

Oh the images that abound, of the Reel Neil practising chip shots on the dance floor, Alice dancing round the island, singing, and John rehearsing his power fade in Alice's Restaurant - and that's just for starters!

Thing about golf: it sure takes your mind off cancer for a bit.