Tag Archives: kidney cancer

04.25.15
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Losing a picc line

CT scan Wednesday was the best one yet…diverticulitis has cleared – lets get that picc line out and schedule the kidney surgery!  June 9th has been penciled in for the removal of the left kidney.  When cancer has invaded your body and hangs there in the back of your mind, it seems like a long time to wait…but the scheduler assured me that kidney cancer is a slow grower…I hope she’s right.  Keeping that in mind, since March 9th, I’ve been asking the question…so at what point is the cancer contained and not spread and no longer contained and spread.  No one seems to be able to answer that…so I’m putting my life in the hands of professionals who believe that waiting 6 weeks to take it out won’t have a negative effect on my life.

The picc line removal was about as exciting as having a regular IV removed.  My nurse, Angie, obviously didn’t know that I was a goul and liked to watch medical procedures up close and personal so she told me to look away while she pulled it out…bummer.  Reminded me of how Jenny distracts Jaxon when she’s putting syrup on her pancakes…look over there, Jax.

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Just for the record, I’m officially old.  1 tsp every morning.

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I have an issue with my left upper back teeth so I’m having to go for a cleaning every 3 months this year…ya…nothing says old like the sound of a cleaning instrument!

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This tree is outside my bedroom window.  I love it…I’ve always wanted to have one of these trees in my yard.

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The one thing that is going to keep me young…here we are paying the game…Nina…and I turn around and he giggles.

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and the best part of last night – we finally made it back to Ice House Auction after being gone for almost 2 months.

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Until next time….

04.13.15
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It was a really pleasant Monday….

Angie – “my” nurse from Dr B’s office was my first conversation this morning – she called to tell me my blood tests from Friday all look excellent.  I’m actually feeling a little depressed and nauseated tonight and I know it is all mental.  I feel like I’m coming to the end of this diverticulitis run and may be getting closer to getting this left kidney out of me.  Jenny and I were reading about kidney cancer the other day and apparently there is a 10 – 12 percent chance that a kidney mass as big as mine may not be malignant once they get in there.  That’s like 10 people in a room with kidney cancer – one of them may end up being benign.  I’m going to kind of hold onto those statistics until I know something definite!

Had lunch with Mike and Kim at Cracker Barrel in Liberty…they were traveling through from their visit with Amber and family in Oklahoma City.  It was a totally relaxing visit…and you can’t beat relaxing, loving people!

Yesterday afternoon, he brought a sheet in from the garage, a little planer (I think that is what it is) and 3 sticks, planted himself on the coffee table.

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What are ya doin?

Jaxon was out today.  Nails were pulling up on the decking…between the 3 of us – we got them hammered back down.

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Until next time….

04.12.15
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The real reason that we should not worry about tomorrow….

It’s been a long process from the days when I panicked because I didn’t have something on my mind to worry about – to where I’m starting to find some peace…the kind of peace that begins the day with It’s a beautiful day, what am I going to enjoy today.  Okay…that may be a little too pollyanna for those of you who really know me…but suffice it to say, I’ve come a long way.

When I retired back in February of 2014, I wasn’t the least bit concerned that my health insurance coverage was pretty much only going to pay the best using Iowa Providers…I was healthy…I weighed a ton too much but I knew that was a problem I was going to solve.  Now his health insurance worried me.  Also Iowa provider based but I was able to up his coverage thru Wellmark, pay a little bit out of pocket and he would have some reasonably good coverage down here…I mean seriously…he was only a 1/4 ton overweight but he did have some health issues.

Damn….I had that all backwards and seriously had a lot to worry about, I just didn’t know it.  Proving the point that it does no good to worry and if you are a worrier…you are no doubt worrying about the wrong thing.

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I threw in this picture because all the crap I’ve been through in the last month…this one made me feel the oldest.  I have taken my share of falls in the past – not medically related…but when the hospital who doesn’t know your history slaps one of these on your wrist the day you turn 59, ugh.  Just the frosting on the cake for you have an abscessed diverticulitis and kidney cancer.

As of this week, I’m starting on my third week of iv antibiotics…the abscess is improved but not quite gone yet.  Infectious disease doctor is hoping to talk to the urologist in Des Moines sometime this week and assist in getting a plan to finally cut out this left kidney.  That is good news.  This diverticulitis treatment is depressing because it seems to be never ending.  The pain isn’t so bad now…in fact it is very mild intermittent pain.  The antibiotic is very strong and not conducive to an active life.  I have a few good hours in me.  I infuse my self every evening through a picc line in my left arm.

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It is a totally amazing little system

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The party ball (of which it has been affectionally named) is pressurized – I attach it and 35 minutes later, I flush with saline – shoot up a heparin lock and wait to feel groggy.

I’m very fortunate.  Doctors think my cancer is still contained within the membrane of the kidney.  I have an amazing man who waits on me hand and foot – my girls attempt to keeping me laughing with the weird humor they learned from he and me and I have my good friends who check in on me when i’ve been quiet for awhile.

It’s pretty cloudy here today, I’m going to enjoy it.

Until next time…..

03.30.15
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I’m drinking a cup of coffee….

This is the first coffee I have had for a week…I did the caffeine withdrawal in the hospital…the killer headache…the ask someone different for a cup of coffee and maybe they will say yes…then they told me I was on a caffeine free floor.  Curses.

I was in the hospital last week for my second round of diverticulitis…I truly believe the doctor who sent me home with oral meds the week before didn’t really have the medical knowledge to treat my ailment and unfortunately I had to suffer for it.  My care was taken over by an infection disease doctor…who I must add is the best doctor I have ever had in my life…it almost makes me tear up to think about how much time he spent with me discussing what I should and shouldn’t eat, his plan of action for me to cure the diverticulitis and get on with my kidney surgery.  He sent me up with a Picc line and sent me home with IV antibiotics and I have total confidence that he is going to get me through this.  Total confidence is something I’ve never had in a doctor before and it peaceful.

I’m also eating contrary to the healthy eating I’ve been doing for the last year.  I’m eating white bread, I’m eating peanut butter, I’m eating soda crackers, I’m eating ice cream – I’m to eat soft and low fiber…only water, apple juice and grape juice – no coffee although one cup occasionally will not kill me…no onions, no green peppers…I no longer have pain but know that I still have heaping amount of infection in a 4cm abscess.

This too shall pass.

Took a short walk in the sun this afternoon and talked flowers with my neighbor Robbien and did I mention drinking a cup of coffee.

Going out to the deck to bask in this beautiful sun.

Until next time….

03.18.15
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I have a girlfriend who has been battling cancer for several years…

Tracy has always been very open with details of her cancer, her procedures, how she is trying to prepare her body for those procedures and staying strong and living life.  I’ve soaked in her details and thought that her writing about her life was probably as cathartic for her as it was for us, her friends, who thought about her struggle day and night.  The one thing I always wondered is…when you have this CANCER growing in you and you know it is there…how do you not think about it all of the time…how do you just accept that it is there and continue to put one foot in front of the other and be viable?

I now have kidney cancer that I wake up with everyday and go to sleep with everynight.  It is there!

What I think this has done for me has thickened my resolve and pissed me off….and I’ve never been one who just sits around and takes it when I’m pissed off!  Let me add here that my kidney cancer is probably all contained in my kidney and the doctor is pretty sure that they will snip it out and the cancer will be gone.  There is not Chemo or radiation that I”m aware of to treat kidney cancer.  More than one person has said to me that if I’m going to get cancer…this is the one to get.  It has also been suggested that having diverticulitis probably has saved my life – with the finding of the cancer early before it broke out of it’s lining.  So far…I think I’m lucky!

What I’ve become militant about it is what is going in my mouth.  I’ve eaten healthy for the last year – sans Thanksgiving, Christmas and vacation.  There is a difference in wanting to eat healthy because I”m almost 60 and don’t want to die early and wanting to eat healthy because I’m almost 60, have cancer, and don’t want to die early.  It’s all called perspective….

One of the things I’ve read about kidney cancer is there is really no known cause…but smoking cigarettes and being overweight may have a cause and effect.  CHECK!  Guilty of both…so I”m really not a victim unless I don’t change things…then I just have a death wish.

Until next time….

03.15.15
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Oh! and by the way…you have kidney cancer…

I’ve been a lot of places since the plane arrived in Kansas City last Monday night.  All of them have been confined within a 15 mile area between our home and St Lukes Hospital in Lee’s Summit.  Many are morphine drenched dreams but most are just trying to figure out how in the hell this happened to me.

The trip to Belize.  Not great/not horrible/won’t go back!

During lunch Saturday, I started getting this twinge in my stomach – within an hour, I told him that I needed keys to the room that I wasn’t feeling good.  I made it down the steps and approximately 6 steps to our car when I yelled that I needed him to drive me to the room.  I knew I was circling the drain fast and really had no other option than to buckle down – call from my strength within and tolerate the searing pain until we could get back to the states.  The hospital was not even an option especially after I read about the Corozal hospital on-line

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So that is what I did.  I slept – I could make it on very short little walks – airplanes, airports and thankfully wheels down KC.  After the CT scan at St Luke’s Hospital, I was told it was two abscesses/diverticulitis  which were causing the knife like pains….oh, Mrs. Brown, what we also found on the CT scan was an 8cm tumor on your left kidney which has a 90% chance is cancer.  da dada daaaa!

Prognosis is good – several docs have looked at the scan and a later one of my chest and believe that the cancer is contained in the left kidney.  They will take it out and as the urologist said – I should be able to live a long and normal life.

That’s it for now.  As many times as this revisits my head in a day, I’ll be back to talk about it all later.

Until next time….