Cancer

“You have cancer.”

Three words. Three words that floored me.

Those words, spoken by my doctor, Melissa Becker, hit like a sledgehammer between the eyes. I felt fine, other than arthritis in my shoulders and a spine made cranky by the rods and screws in my lower back. I had absolutely no symptoms, no odd pain or discomfort...anywhere.

Yet I had cancer, a type that would have most likely killed me within fourteen months or so: small-cell renal carcinoma. If undetected, the cancer cells metastasize, or spread, to other organs, the most common being the lungs and liver. According to Dr. Becker, once the cancer spreads to those organs, survival of the disease diminishes greatly. In stage IV, the five-year survival rate is eight per cent. Pretty solemn numbers.

I was lucky, though.

In February of 2013 I had knee surgery; as part of post-operative protocol, an X-ray was taken of my lungs to ensure I wasn't developing pneumonia. When reviewed by a radiologist, the film revealed a very small spot in one of my lungs, which Dr. Becker later explained was most probably histoplasmosis, which is a type of fungal infection commonly found in the Great Lakes region of the United States. Histoplasmosis has something to do with bird and/or bat excrement; hundreds of thousands of people living in the aforementioned region have it and are unaware. The infection, in healthy adults, usually resolves itself, but as a precaution I would have a chest X-ray every six months, to ensure the spot wasn't growing or moving.

I was good with that...for 18 months. Then I reverted to stubbornness. Why spend the money for an X-ray if nothing at all had changed with that spot for a year and a half? When Dr. Becker's office called to remind me it was time for another film to be taken I blew it off, telling the office manager that I wasn't going to bother. I felt fine and couldn't see the sense in wasting the doctor's time or my money.

Big mistake.

Over the next two months I received several reminders from her office; finally Stephanie, one of my favorites on the good doctor's office staff, called and chewed on my male pride rather sternly. I relented and eventually had the X-ray taken.

It probably saved my life.

The film had caught the upper part of my left kidney and had shown some sort of growth; “It might be just a cyst, which isn't uncommon,” Dr. Becker had told me, “but let's get an MRI just to be sure. If it turns out to be a cyst, we won't do anything with it unless it starts causing problems.” The session was scheduled and completed a few days later.

I drove a school bus for fifteen years and often drove for after-school athletics events. I was doing just that the day following the MRI when my cell phone rang; of course, I couldn't answer that call while behind the wheel of the fifteen-ton vehicle filled with young lives, so the call went unanswered. Once we arrived at our destination and the student athletes had disembarked, I checked the voice mail that had been left. The message scared the hell out of me.

Paraphrasing, the message said that the doctor had made an appointment for me the next morning at 10 a.m., and that I should bring my wife with me. Later that evening, after I'd gotten home, I recounted the message to my wife. We both had the same thought:

This is not good.

The next morning we sat in an exam room and listened to Doctor Becker tell us those opening words. “BUT”, she said, “this is the best-case scenario you could have hoped for. We caught it very, very early. You'll lose a kidney, but you should be fine because the tumor hasn't gotten to the size where it would start to spread to other organs. Renal carcinoma usually doesn't manifest itself until it affects your liver and lungs...and by then, in most cases, it's too late.”

I was referred to a large group of nephrologists in Columbus and was seen by Dr. Pewitt. After reading my personal physician's notes and reviewing the X-ray and MRI films and associated radiology reports, he told us that no, I wouldn't lose the entire kidney, only the top third of it, since the tumor was still totally encapsulated within that part of the organ. Additionally, he related that he specialized in robotic procedures, which would mean three small incisions to remove the partial kidney and a much quicker healing period. However, there was an outside chance he and the surgeon who assisted him would have to resort to the standard large incision, which would be about a foot long just under the left rib cage, to complete the removal, dependent on a few variables.

As we left his office, I told my wife Stacy: “Count on the large incision.”

I just knew.

A week later Dr. Pewitt's surgery scheduler called; I was scheduled for June 30^th.

That was a 45-day wait. Forty-five days! I will tell you now that was the longest month-and-a-half of my life. I spent many, many nights during that time either lying awake in bed or retreating to my recliner in the living room because I couldn't sleep. Knowing that tumor was living and growing inside my body weighed heavily on my mind, and I did a lot of 'what if'-ing during those sleepless nights. And a lot of praying, too.

One night in particular, during a session between God and I at about four in the morning, I was hit with what I can only describe as a very calming, reassuring feeling, one that felt like a warmed blanket being wrapped around me. With that feeling came a still, small voice in my mind, heard by no one but me.

“You will be fine.”

From that night until they wheeled me into the operating room, laid me on that cold surgical table ( WHY are they always so cold? ) and started the IV that rendered me unconscious...I was calm. No worries, no 'what ifs'. I would be OK. God Himself had told me so.

When I awoke and came to some semblance of my senses, Stacy told me that, yes, I did have the standard, large incision ( I couldn't feel it yet ) because I'd started bleeding internally pretty badly during the robotic procedure. So much so that I was given six units of blood during the two-hour process. A surgical nurse had come out of the procedure room and told her the circumstances and the bleeding couldn't be controlled until they opened me up.

When she was telling me this she broke down. “I thought I was going to lose you”, she sobbed; it broke my heart to see my bride so emotionally distraught; it gave me a strange feeling of guilt. I never, ever want to be the reason my wife cries.

After three days in the Intensive Care Unit due to the blood loss I was transferred to a private room, where I convalesced without issue. Soon, I was released to go home.

The good news is, Dr. Pewitt and his team are extremely confident that the tumor was removed well before it had the opportunity to spread to other organs; testing and a follow-up visit with the doctor this past November revealed no sign of the RCC. My next visit is scheduled is December of this year.

I am a very blessed, lucky man. The Good Lord obviously has something yet for me to do on this earth.