Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'Kidney Cancer'.
Found 5 results
-
Today’s Cushing’s Awareness Challenge post is about kidney cancer (renal cell carcinoma). You might wonder how in the world this is related to Cushing’s. I think it is, either directly or indirectly. I alluded to this a couple days ago when I said: So, as I said, I started Growth Hormone for my panhypopituitarism on December 7, 2004. I took it for a while but never really felt any better, no more energy, no weight loss. Sigh. April 14 2006 I went back to the endo and found out that the arginine test that was done in 2004 was done incorrectly. The directions were written unclearly and the test run incorrectly, not just for me but for everyone who had this test done there for a couple years. My endo discovered this when he was writing up a research paper and went to the lab to check on something. So, I went off GH again for 2 weeks, then was retested. The “good news” was that the arginine test is only 90 minutes now instead of 3 hours. Wow, what a nightmare my arginine retest started! I went back for that Thursday, April 27, 2006. Although the test was shorter, I got back to my hotel and just slept and slept. I was so glad that I hadn’t decided to go right home after the test. Friday I felt fine and drove back home, no problem. I picked up my husband for a biopsy he was having and took him to an outpatient surgical center. While I was there waiting for the biopsy to be completed, I started noticing blood in my urine and major abdominal cramps. There were signs all over that no cellphones were allowed so I sat in the restroom (I had to be in there a lot, anyway!) and I left messages for several of my doctors on what I should do. It was Friday afternoon and most of them were gone 🙁 I finally decided to see my PCP after I got my husband home. When Tom was done with his testing, his doctor took one look at me and asked if I wanted an ambulance. I said no, that I thought I could make it to the emergency room ok – Tom couldn’t drive because of the anaesthetic they had given him. I barely made it to the ER and left the car with Tom to park. Tom’s doctor followed us to the ER and instantly became my new doctor. They took me in pretty fast since I was in so much pain, and had the blood in my urine. At first, they thought it was a kidney stone. After a CT scan, my new doctor said that, yes, I had a kidney stone but it wasn’t the worst of my problems, that I had kidney cancer. Wow, what a surprise that was! I was admitted to that hospital, had more CT scans, MRIs, bone scans, they looked everywhere. My new “instant doctor” felt that he wasn’t up to the challenge of my surgery, so he called in someone else. My next new “instant doctor” came to see me in the ER in the middle of the night. He patted my hand, like a loving grandfather might and said “At least you won’t have to do chemotherapy”. And I felt so reassured. It wasn’t until later, much after my surgery, that I found out that there was no chemo yet that worked for my cancer. I was so thankful for the way he told me. I would have really freaked out if he’d said that nothing they had was strong enough! My open radical nephrectomy was May 9, 2006 in another hospital from the one where the initial diagnosis was made. My surgeon felt that he needed a specialist from that hospital because he believed preop that my tumor had invaded into the vena cava because of its appearance on the various scans. Luckily, that was not the case. My entire left kidney and the encapsulated cancer (10 pounds worth!) were removed, along with my left adrenal gland and some lymph nodes. Although the cancer (renal cell carcinoma AKA RCC) was very close to hemorrhaging, the surgeon believed he got it all. He said I was so lucky. If the surgery had been delayed any longer, the outcome would have been much different. I will be repeating the CT scans every 3 months, just to be sure that there is no cancer hiding anywhere. As it turns out, I can never say I’m cured, just NED (no evidence of disease). This thing can recur at any time, anywhere in my body. I credit the arginine re-test with somehow aggravating my kidneys and revealing this cancer. Before the test, I had no clue that there was any problem. The arginine test showed that my IGF is still low but due to the kidney cancer I couldn’t take my growth hormone for another 5 years – so the test was useless anyway, except to hasten this newest diagnosis. So… either Growth Hormone helped my cancer grow or testing for it revealed a cancer I might not have learned about until later. My five years are up now. When I was 10 years free of this cancer my kidney surgeon *thought* it would be ok to try the growth hormone again. I was a little leery about this, especially where I didn’t notice that much improvement. What to do? BTW, I decided to…
- 1 reply
-
- 1
-
-
- cushing's awareness day
- kidney cancer
- (and 1 more)
-
And today, we talk about pink jeeps and ziplines… How in the world did we get here in a Cushing’s Challenge? I’m sliding these in because earlier I linked (possibly!) my growth hormone use as a cause of my cancer – and I took the GH due to Cushing’s issues. Clear? LOL http://cushieblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/pink-jeep.jpg?w=300&h=225&resize=300%2C225 I had found out that I had my kidney cancer on Friday, April 28, 2006 and my surgery on May 9, 2006. I was supposed to go on a Cushie Cruise to Bermuda on May 14, 2006. My surgeon said that there was no way I could go on that cruise and I could not postpone my surgery until after that cruise. I got out of the hospital on the day that the other Cushies left for the cruise and realized that I wouldn’t have been much (ANY!) fun and I wouldn’t have had any. An especially amusing thread from that cruise is The Adventures of Penelopee Cruise (on the Cushing’s Help message boards). Someone had brought a UFC jug and decorated her and had her pose around the ship. The beginning text reads: Although I missed this trip, I was feeling well enough to go to Sedona, Arizona in August, 2006. I convinced everyone that I was well enough to go off-road in a pink jeep, DH wanted to report me to my surgeon but I survived without to much pain and posed for the header image. In 2009, I figured I have “extra years” since I survived the cancer and I wanted to do something kinda scary, yet fun. So, somehow, I decided on ziplining. Tom wouldn’t go with me but Michael would so I set this up almost as soon as we booked a Caribbean cruise to replace the Cushie Cruise to Bermuda. Enough of adventures – fun ones like these, and scary ones like transsphenoidal surgery and radical nephrectomy!
-
- 1
-
-
- cushing's awareness day
- growth hormone
- (and 3 more)
-
This is one of the suggestions from the Cushing’s Awareness Challenge post: This one is so easy. I’ve said it a thousand times – you know your own body better than any doctor will. Most doctors have never seen a Cushing’s patient, few ever will in the future. If you believe you have Cushing’s (or any other rare disease), learn what you can about it, connect with other patients, make a timeline of symptoms and photographs. Read, take notes, save all your doctors’ notes, keep your lab findings, get second/third/ten or more opinions. Make a calendar showing which days you had what symptoms. Google calendars are great for this. This is your life, your one and only shot (no pun intended!) at it. Make it the best and healthiest that you can. When my friend and fellow e-patient Dave deBronkart learned he had a rare and terminal kidney cancer, he turned to a group of fellow patients online and found a medical treatment that even his own doctors didn’t know. It saved his life. In this video, he calls on all patients to talk with one another, know their own health data, and make health care better one e-Patient at a time.
-
- 1
-
-
- cushing's awareness day
- e-patient
- (and 1 more)
-
I'm so pleased with myself. This morning I just did a local "Turkey Trot", just the walking part, but I made it 2 miles and didn't need the extra cortisone I brought just in case. This event benefits the local Life With Cancer center where I take some classes. It's such a neat feeling to be out there with 4,000 others, all running/walking/trotting/pushing strollers/walking dogs for a common cause. This event today took in over $250,000. Amazing! My son and husband ran (one way faster than the other!) and my mom and I walked. It was so cold and rainy, but what a sense of accomplishment! I had no idea if I could do that or not, but now that I have, maybe next year I'll be running too. (HA!)
-
Since I had surgery for kidney cancer May 9, 2006, I've been looking around for somewhere to read and talk about this with other survivors (hopefully!) I haven't found anyplace I'd like to visit or feel comfortable with yet, so I decided to make a new blog here. I'm sure that my recovery will be much the same as for any other major abdominal surgery, although I'd like it to be faster Before my surgery, I didn't have time really to consider that I had cancer, and what it meant for my life. There was no going from doctor to doctor, running a different test each week, suspecting that maybe... Just boom, there it is. Cancer. Now that I'm about 6 months post-op, I'm thinking more and more about this and how it might affect my future. I know that there are going to be lots of scans, every 3 months, just to be sure that there wasn't a cell hiding out. I know I have to be careful with meds - no NSAIDs so my arthritis is worse. I can no longer take hGH (recombinant growth hormone by daily injection, due to panhypopituitarism) even though I'm deficient. In 5 years (if I survive!) I can take the GH again, supposedly. I'm supposed to be eating less protein, more fruits/veggies, drinking more water. And I'm supposed to avoid playing football and other things that might damage my remaining kidney. Normally, I know how very lucky I am. I just reread the path reports and know that the tumor was already hemorrhaging around the borders and the cysts contained hemorrhagic fluid. Things could be much worse. Sometimes, at night when I can't sleep, I wonder why I was lucky like this. What haven't I done with my life that I should. Seems to me that I've accomplished what I should already. And, in the night, I worry about the cancer returning, taking my other kidney or worse. At this time, there's no standard chemo unless it's metastasized, although there are some promising clinical trials. Radiation doesn't seem to work for this kind of cancer, so if it returns it's more surgery. From my past posts: and I plan to keep a kidney cancer journal of sorts in here, so years from now I can look back and laugh and wonder why in the world I was so worried. I just updated my bio. I said: People mostly assume that everything is OK with me because I am not getting chemo or radiation and because I look so "healthy" (thanks to the Cushing's/daily Cortef!). They figure that if there was any real danger of the cancer metasticizing that I would be on chemo, like other cancer patients do. They don't understand that I have to wait and pray because there are no approved ajuvant treatments. If/when my cancer returns, it's just more surgery. If I'm "lucky" enough and get to a stage 4 THEN I can have chemo/radiation as a pallative measure. Aarrggh! Do I see starting a kidney cancer support group in my future?
