The end of January I noticed blood in my urine. But no pain. Quickly it turned to more blood than urine. I called my primary doctor and describe the symptoms they figured it was probably some sort of UTI or kidney stone. Nothing to worry about. Antibiotics were prescribed.
After about five days of antibiotics there was no change. Then I started to feel faint and weak. After consulting Dr. Internet and calling the nurse hotline I headed to the ER. (no pain when a urinated was a definite red flag)
The ER ran the full workup. Blood counts, metabolic panel, urinalysis the whole deal. Most of the results came back normal. But it turns out I was anemic. The reason I was so depleted and weak was that I was expelling large amounts of iron during the week. I was expelling THAT much blood. So even more tests.
The CT scan came back, They found a mass on my left kidney, about 10 centimeters (roughly the size of a softball). Most definitely cancerous. They also did a CT of my chest to see if anything spread and it hadn't. Apparently the first place it would go after the kidney is the lungs. But it was contained in the kidney. 10 cm worth. They treated me as best they could and gave me a urologist referral for the next day.
I'd always been the one sitting beside the bed, not lying in it.
At the Urologist appointment it was explained to me that this was going to play out two ways. The doctor was going to go in laparoscopically (with robots!) He felt the mass was far away enough from anything vital that he could successfully remove it and save the kidney. If that wasn't the case he would remove it. Best case kidney saved, worst case I move forward with one kidney. I wasn't entertaining the absolute worst case.
A surgical appointment was made for about two weeks from that appointment. For those two weeks I would have to live with the symptoms.
A surgical appointment was made for about two weeks from that appointment. For those two weeks I would have to live with the symptoms.
Those two weeks were a little surreal. Basically awaiting game. During that time I had a full MRI and cardio clearance. The MRI had told us that nothing had spread to the blood vessels and there was nothing anywhere in my abdomen. All good news.
I had resigned myself to the fact that I would be losing a kidney. With a mass this big saving it was a longshot.
Like I said before even though I had been in and out of hospitals I had
never truly been a patient before. So I decided to do my own research.
Turns out this book wasn't as helpful as I thought it would be. But I stopped swallowing puzzle pieces.
The day of surgery finally came. (kind of like reverse Christmas) I checked into the ER early in the morning and was given plenty of drugs.
Surgery began and the doctor performed a robot-assisted left partial nephrectomy with the help of the the da Vinci Xi surgical robot.
(Actual machine)
I woke up with a bunch of doctors standing over me letting me know that they did in fact save the kidney.
The surgery went well. Minimal blood loss, no complications. The tumor itself was rated a 9P on the nephrometry score , basically a complexity scale for kidney tumors where (10 is the max)
After a four day stay I was discharged with a JP drain hanging off of me. (do not recommend) an oxycodone prescription and a follow up appointment.
while recovering the pathology on the mass came back.
The mass was cancerous. Clear-cell renal cell carcinoma. the most common type of kidney cancer. It was 9 cm, grade 3 out of 4 on the aggressiveness scale. But the surgical margins were negative. Clean edges. They got it all out. And it had not spread beyond the kidney.
Key takeaways:
- For tumor that large it probably took anywhere from 5 to 10 years to grow
- I should see an uptick in quality of life because it was definitely draining my stamina for the past decade
- I need to go for an ultrasound/CAT scan every six months or so just to make sure there isn't any return growth
I'm about halfway through the six week recovery period. The drain is out and I am slowly regaining energy. Soon i'll be back to working out and running again!