New guy Just dianosed

lggyrip,

Mine was 4.2 cm, 14 years ago. Surgery only and scans. So far, so good. Hopefully the surgery will be your only treatment. As long as it is contained and under 7 cm it is still  stage 1. You need to see a Urologist who specializes in Kidney Cancer unless the On cologist is also a Kidney Cancer surgeon. You also want this out ASAP.

Welcome to the club which no one in their right mind would volunteer to join. We all felt like sh--  when hearing the C word and you are going to have your kidney taken out in the same sentance. That too shall pass.

Icemantoo

Your feelings of being scared & depressed are normal, those words & emotions walk hand in hand with the word cancer.  It's like someone just dropped a ton of bricks on you.  Lots to think about, and rethink and then there's the journey that lies ahead and you're not sure which way to turn.  We've all been there.  Unlike you, I didn't stumble onto this site till 3+ years after my diagnosis & surgery and I only wish I'd known of it sooner.  Try to stay away from the Google searches, lots of outdated material there. 

I will echo what others have advised, make sure your doctor specializes in kidney cancer.  Mine is a Urologic / Oncologist.  He did my surgery & I see him for all my follow-ups.  Since you've only had an Ultrasound (if I understand correctly) your next step will probably be a CT scan.  If so, make sure it is ordered with contrast.  My initial CT wasn't and I had to go back to have it done with & without.  Depending on where the mass is located they might be able to perform a robotic laparascopic procedure and do a partial nephrectomy, so you don't necessarily lose the whole kidney.  Although you'll want to have this addressed ASAP, you do have time to seek out the best doctor for the job too.

We'll walk with you through this, if you want us to.  Keep us posted.

In the meantime, I'll be adding you to my prayers for all my "friends" here,

Donna~

Welcome.This is a good site, there is another, just as supportive slightly more technical called Smart Patients. Apart from that stay off the internet, you will find yourself on the dark side, surrounded by the mad, bad, dangerous to know, out of date or a mix of all the above.

I think we all remember our diagnosis, and the feeling that death was coming down on us riding on the engine of a speeding train. Relax, its not as bad as our imagination makes it. By the way 5.5 cm is pretty small (mine was 10 cms and I have a new one at 6'5 growing in my lungs - this is still kidney cancer and is called a met. A metastatic tumour that has moved from is original location).

You have started your treatment. Well done. The first thing is to get that lump out and then decide what happens next.

DONT PANIC! Cancer is no longer the death sentence it used to be. Research and trials are bringing more hope and more treatmets every day. It seems that, like AIDS, cancer is changing from a terminal disease to a chronic treatable one.

Welcome. Tough news and Good luck.

Iggy,

Many of us both inside and outside the club have nodes on our lung. Not necessarily as part of Kidney Cancer even thou it often spreds to the lungs ffirst. Those under 8mm and show no growth between scans are normally considered harmless. If some of them grow or misbehave the reason for the scans is to catch them and treat them before they misbehave. In my day 14 years ago the initial diagnoses of the chest was by chest x-ray which does not pick up nodes under 8mm. My chest CT's were for other issues 10 years later which picked up harmless small nodes.

Icemantoo

Hi Iggy,

It sounds like you have a careful oncologist guiding your care. That's terrific.

They can't fully stage your tumor until it's removed from your body. That's something that really surpised me, so I make it a point to tell everyone. Your prognosis is going to not just depend on size, but also the type of cancer (if it is cancer) and whether the tumor grew outside the kidney or not. They can't really figure this out with imaging alone. They need to get it out, slice it up, and look at it under a microscope. They call that a "pathology" report, which you'd get after having the tumor removed.

There are all kinds of things it can be, some very benign and not so common based on the size and the way it looks. Some more serious. The thing is these first findings based on images will be guesses. They might be even good guesses.

It's good she's doing imaging on your chest. Are you having a CT with contrast? For RCC that's kind of the usual way most of us go. The most common places it spreads are lungs, bones, other organs like liver.

Your tumor size alone (if it even is a tumor) suggests Stage 1. However, it's not a bad plan to look around. I had a CT of my chest too. My tumor was a little larger than yours at 6.9 cm (just below that 7 cm threshold where it moves to Stage 2).

Don't panic. There's lots of treatment options. Smaller tumors wholly contained in your kidney aren't very likely to have spread.

Did you talk to the urologist yet about surgery? What are your options on the surgery? More and more they do what's called a "partial" nephrectomy that can save part of your kidney. I wasn't a candidate for that because my tumor was right in the middle of my kidney and that's where the blood supply enters/leaves the kidney. Some urologists don't do partials. Some don't do laparascopy. Shop around if you need to to find the best available. Experience counts. The best trained urologists are usually called urologic oncologists. They have additional training in kidney masses and robotic assisted laparascopy surgery.

Hope you find some of this information helpful. My tumor was found 4 years ago. I was diagnosed Stage 1 before my surgery and Stage 3 when the pathology came back because the tumor had grown into some of my blood vessels. This is not very common. However, I was really shocked and pissed off when I discovered that the imaging was not sufficient to fully diagnose the stage. I would rather have had an explanation that the staging based on the imaging is preliminary.

Try not to worry about outcomes. Getting used to the unknown is part of this process. Everything is going to be just fine!

Wishing you the best,

Todd

What a scary time for you. Wishing you good catscan results. Try not to worry and just take one day at a time or it will get overwhelming. God bless you.