Four years after kidney removal.... it's baaaaaack...

But I can speak with some confidence about Ancient History. And having kidney cancer with mets in my lungs. 1st observation; they are tiny! Well mine are/have been much bugger. Ive had them since I was diagnosed on May 1st 2013. Ive taken a series of different drugs/proceedures which have reduced them in size until they stopped working or had crappy side effects. Eventually I found a drug, which reduced the mets and had pretty much no side effects. The addition of radiation reduced my biggest from 7 (10 xbigger than yours) to 3.5 cm. I have another 2cm and frankly I feel great.

The thing is about RCC is that the only predictable thing about it is its unpredictability.

I dont think you need to worry about changing your plans just yet.

Sorry to meet you here but good luck.

grtdane said:

Thanks for the replies!

Thanks everyone. Nice to be here. Like I said, I was reading stats on the web that was not at all encouraging. I must say the involvment of lymph nodes is worrisome to me, which is why I mentioned about the cancer spreading. Way back in the eighties, as a teenager, I had Hodgkins disease, stage three, in my lungs and liver. and had a year of chemo and six months radiation back then. I am 47 now and still kicking! I will make sure to keep checking in and give updates when I get them. Thanks again! 

Dont research this stuff online! The subject is changing so quickly that almost everything you find will be out of date. If its not out of date then its just downright crazy. On the otherhand, if you see hope in stale alien mucus, go right ahead. 

The only boards I trust are this one and Smartpatients, which I find a bit more technical and scientific.

Be careful: There be dragons!

except I went 5 years without it coming back. Its not a lung specialist  that biopsies them its a interventional radiation specialist (sure I spelled that wrong), I had it done, its a needle biopsy, no big deal you are awake when they do it, takes a half hour or so, and I got the results within a hour, its done in the hospital.

Ive had 4 wedge resections, 2 on each lung, no biggie 5 days in hospital. I had two removed from my left lung Jan 3 2017 going back to work in the morning.  JMO, but you will do better to have traditional thoractomy if you choose the surgery route. The surgeon can feel nodules that are too small to show up on the scans and get them out, if you have vats or robotic they will miss the real small ones that dont show up on the scans. When I had my right lung wedge resections the two 1.0 cm ones were known, when he felt around my lung he found 4 more that were way to small to show up on the scans, so he also removed those. If I had vats or robotic those 4 would have grown into something in my lung.

JMO, but go see a cadiovascular surgeon if your leaning towards surgery, they can get the lymph node and lung nodules all at once, odds are you can skip the whole biopsy thing, I did on my 2nd surgery, the surgeon  can tell by looking at them on the screen what they are with a fair amount of certainty. The surgery isnt that bad, JMO.

grtdane said:

This is super helpful, thanks

This is super helpful, thanks so much for sharing. I feel like now when I see the guy I was referred to (a pulmonologist) I will have a better idea what to expect. I live in Canada so it will be interesting to see what route they want me to follow. I will keep ya posted. All the best! 

I am so sorry to hear the progression. I would suggest you to join the discussion forum of KidneyCancerCanada.ca

I am sure the members there including Deb Masken will be able to provide more suggestions to you.

Don't worry right now about what might be, let the doctors determine what the growths are.  Just enjoy your family and as FootStomper said stay away from the web on this the info is mostly outdated. 

Good Luck

Mark