Cancer Does Not Have to Win

My appointment with the urologist went in an unusual path.  He came in happy, and told me it was cancer, but we had found it in time.  At that time kidney cancer was often fatal, but that was because by the time the symptoms manifest themselves it usually has spread. 

He presented it was with the words, “You have a friend called God.”  He went on to say the kidney stone was the reason the cancer was detected early, and it could be removed surgically.  His view of the kidney stone was it was a gift from God.

Last July I went for a routine monitoring.  A lymph node was slightly enlarged.  My urologist consulted with a cancer specialist, and the latter decided the cancer had returned after six years, a long time for this to happen.  It was in a lymph node that was near the removed kidney.

Surgery was scheduled for August, then cancelled.  A second tumor appeared in a detailed scan and appeared to be in the lungs.  He feared many more tumors might become apparent, so he wanted to wait.

In the period of waiting I was given a new form of chemo, a drug that has less severe side effects.  I read the material that came with the drug and it indicated it had a reduction of at least thirty percent in just over half of the people taking it, after five and a half months. 

After three months the larger tumor shrunk from 20 millimeters to just six millimeters.  I realize that is a seventy percent reduction in one dimension, but if we consider equal shrinking in three dimensions it is about ninety-seven percent reduction. 

I did have some side effects.  Any injury, such as a scratch from my new puppy, took longer to heal.  And I developed callouses that made walking difficult.  A little tooth problem became a larger problem.  Yet, these are mild compared to what happens with other forms of chemo.

My wife immediately activated a group she is friends with who pray for people.  And many of my friends at work, and others in my Knights of Columbus Council prayed.  Others also joined in.

After the diagnosis my wife began seeing to it that certain foods with cancer fighting abilities were added to my diet.  One thing was olive oil.  Olive oil became our cooking oil.  But there is so much more.

In January I had several lymph nodes in a chain of lymph nodes removed.  The result was just one other, the one closest to the area where the removed kidney once was, had a too small to be detected tumor.  This was much better than the doctors expected.

In February a second surgeon went after the tumor originally thought to be in the left lung.  Before the surgery he determined it to be in a node between the lung and the heart.  This was great because initially it was thought a partial lung removal would be needed.

I spent but one night in the hospital after the first surgery, and two nights after the second.  My second stay was almost extended because my heart rate went up during the second night.  It went back to a normal rhythm after two hours.  I was allowed to go home, but had to purchase a device that checks my heart rate and rhythm. 

In early April I had a scan that showed nothing else of significance.  I will be scanned for life, but it is a tolerable thing.  I took the chemo for over four months, and the hope is that any small clusters of undetected cancer cells were reduced or eliminated. 

Well, no.  If it were not for my doctors I would have never known until it would have been too late.  I felt nothing.  And the surgeries were not that bad, a little discomfort.  I had a bottle of pain medicine that I did not use.  I turned it in when the government collected old medicine in an effort to keep them from entering the sewerage system after flushing them down. 

Just as the chemo I took had just been made available, my doctor told me that there is no cure short of surgically removing kidney cancer, but there is something that will be coming available in the near future. 

So, if the cancer does come back we will make an early detection, and depending on the location will act accordingly. 

I did not teach this semester, so I was free to pursue other interests.  One of those interests was to be able to take a course.  I signed up for a Bible study course on the Book of Revelations.  It is intense, and well worth the effort.  I would have missed much of the meanings of things without someone to teach the course to me.  I would not have been free at the time it meets if I were teaching.

No matter what the illness, prayer is a great way to react.  And have hope in the research that is going on. 

I did remain upbeat throughout the process, and I believe that also helped. 

The four factors in winning can be summed up as include God with prayer, select cancer fighting foods, keep a positive attitude, and have great doctors.  Such a simple formula, but it worked well for me.

Those who normally read my articles might have noticed a decrease in my writing during the surgery period, and an increase thereafter since I am on sick leave.

This article was planned for quite some time, but I could not figure out how to write it.  And, until the April scan I had more uncertainty than I felt comfortable with for sharing.

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The introduction images are my own.

I had a robot assisted surgery, and the news was good.  The tumor was encapsulated, and it appeared the entire cancerous mass was removed.  I did lose a kidney, but that is minor compared to the alternative.

I was monitored every six months at first, then the time was lengthened.