Patman
Staff member
I wasn't sure if I was going to share this on here, or continue to keep it hush hush, but then I realized that my story might force some of you to get yourselves checked out and be saved like I was!
My story began back on September 12th of last year. I was feeling some chest pains so I had my ex wife drive me to Niagara Falls hospital. I spent 12 hours in the ER that night and they were doing bloodwork and other tests and still not finding anything wrong with me. Thankfully instead of giving up and sending me home, the overworked ER doctor (the only one on duty that night!) sent me for a CT scan of my chest. During that scan he noticed a "swelling around my kidney" which he urged me to follow up with my family doctor. I made an appointment right away and saw my doctor on Sept 24th. He sent me for an ultrasound, and after seeing those results he sent me to a urologist and he sent me for another CT scan (this was now October 24th) Things happened very quickly after that, because the urologist saw that there was a very large tumor, basically the size of my entire right kidney, so he managed to book me for surgery on November 12th. On that day they removed my entire right kidney, along with the lymph nodes and adrenal glands. My recovery went very well after that, I was in hospital for 5 days after the surgery and after I left the hospital I did not take any pain meds at all, the pain from the wound really wasn't too bad (I would rate it a 2 or 3 out of 10 on the pain scale) 2 weeks and 2 days after my surgery I gave a walking tour in Niagara Falls! The cool thing was, that ended up being a private tour with a lovely couple from Pennsylvania, the guy was a surgeon! He knew exactly what type of surgery that I had and even told me that a person can live a full life with one kidney, in fact he said we can even live a fairly normal life it we had 1/3rd of one kidney! Amazing!
Fast forward to today, I had my followup with my urologist, who was in fact the one who performed the surgery. After seeing the toxicology report he said things look very good! The cancer was contained in just the kidney, it had not spread to the lymph nodes or adrenal glands, or anywhere else in that area. Because of this fact, I don't need any other treatment at this time (no chemo, no other medications) For the rest of my life I will need to get CT scans done every six months just to keep an eye on making sure we catch the cancer if it reappears (which it most likely will) But I'm in better shape to fight things off by having those regular scans and I always knew that eventually I was going to get cancer because my mother died of cancer in 2009 after battling it a couple of times (she was cancer free for 5 years at one point before it returned) When it does return someday, we'll be in a better position to catch it fast (my kidney cancer was probably there for 2-3 years before we caught it!) and hopefully there will be advancements in medicine and treatments at that time too.
So after sharing this story I hope it gets some of you to get yourself checked out if you feel anything that is "off". My chest pains were likely due to the very high blood pressure I was seeing at the time (due to the cancer) On one of my doctor visits it was 180/110. Now after the surgery I have no chest pains and my blood pressure is usually at 110/70, and that's without any meds (I was briefly on BP meds just for one week before the surgery to bring it down to a lower level)
My story began back on September 12th of last year. I was feeling some chest pains so I had my ex wife drive me to Niagara Falls hospital. I spent 12 hours in the ER that night and they were doing bloodwork and other tests and still not finding anything wrong with me. Thankfully instead of giving up and sending me home, the overworked ER doctor (the only one on duty that night!) sent me for a CT scan of my chest. During that scan he noticed a "swelling around my kidney" which he urged me to follow up with my family doctor. I made an appointment right away and saw my doctor on Sept 24th. He sent me for an ultrasound, and after seeing those results he sent me to a urologist and he sent me for another CT scan (this was now October 24th) Things happened very quickly after that, because the urologist saw that there was a very large tumor, basically the size of my entire right kidney, so he managed to book me for surgery on November 12th. On that day they removed my entire right kidney, along with the lymph nodes and adrenal glands. My recovery went very well after that, I was in hospital for 5 days after the surgery and after I left the hospital I did not take any pain meds at all, the pain from the wound really wasn't too bad (I would rate it a 2 or 3 out of 10 on the pain scale) 2 weeks and 2 days after my surgery I gave a walking tour in Niagara Falls! The cool thing was, that ended up being a private tour with a lovely couple from Pennsylvania, the guy was a surgeon! He knew exactly what type of surgery that I had and even told me that a person can live a full life with one kidney, in fact he said we can even live a fairly normal life it we had 1/3rd of one kidney! Amazing!
Fast forward to today, I had my followup with my urologist, who was in fact the one who performed the surgery. After seeing the toxicology report he said things look very good! The cancer was contained in just the kidney, it had not spread to the lymph nodes or adrenal glands, or anywhere else in that area. Because of this fact, I don't need any other treatment at this time (no chemo, no other medications) For the rest of my life I will need to get CT scans done every six months just to keep an eye on making sure we catch the cancer if it reappears (which it most likely will) But I'm in better shape to fight things off by having those regular scans and I always knew that eventually I was going to get cancer because my mother died of cancer in 2009 after battling it a couple of times (she was cancer free for 5 years at one point before it returned) When it does return someday, we'll be in a better position to catch it fast (my kidney cancer was probably there for 2-3 years before we caught it!) and hopefully there will be advancements in medicine and treatments at that time too.
So after sharing this story I hope it gets some of you to get yourself checked out if you feel anything that is "off". My chest pains were likely due to the very high blood pressure I was seeing at the time (due to the cancer) On one of my doctor visits it was 180/110. Now after the surgery I have no chest pains and my blood pressure is usually at 110/70, and that's without any meds (I was briefly on BP meds just for one week before the surgery to bring it down to a lower level)
