Mutant Kidney

6 Month Follow-up

I just got back from my 6 month, post surgery follow up. 

It started, actually, about a month ago when I went in for a chest X-Ray and CT scan so they could see how everything was doing in my 'kidney void' as well as looking for anything else that could be a concern.

Today, they did the standard pee-in-a-cup and check yer blood pressure thing and then Dr. Weissman came in and uttered the three words I was hoping for:

"Everything looks fine."

He didn't see any problems and everything looked exactly like he expected it to look after that surgery.  Things are moving around but everything looks good.

Next step: another chest X-Ray and a liver function test in 6 more months.

I guess this is the official transition from cancer patient to cancer survivor.  Woo hoo!

Here's hoping I keep that latter title for a long, long time.

Eat Your Bananas!

Hi.  All is well, here.  Chris goes in for his six-month checkup in July, and we're hoping and assuming the news will be good.  Meanwhile he's working hard, often riding his bike to work, and enjoying his job at Deep Rock Drive. 

I'm popping in because this story just came in from the "YOU" doctors:

Grab a Bunch for Your Kidneys

    Eating four of these a week can cut your kidney-cancer risk in half. Hint: You need to peel it.

Yep, we're talking bananas. They're bursting with phenolic compounds that appear to thwart renal-cancer cells. And that's not all the monkey's favorite fruit brings to your body . . . (click here to read the rest of this article)

Chris hates bananas.  Guess who has two thumbs and is going to force him to eat them, anyway?  [points thumbs at self]  This girl! 

Life, blogs, and parties

Life:  Life is good.  Chris is doing better and better.  He's been back at work pretty much full time for the last week.  The only thing is he needs a nap now and again, as he gets tired.  It's mostly a question of stamina at this time. 

Blogs: People have commented that we haven't posted here for a while.  Well, in this case, no news is good news!  If we have more kidney related stuff we'll definitely post here.  Meanwhile, we're both back at our regular blogs:  Duffergeek and The Leslie Show  bringing you up to date on the world's minutiae. 

Parties:  Last night's "I Am Not Dead Yet" party rocked! And if you missed it, I feel sorry for you.  Thanks to Lisa Dupar Catering for a stellar experience.  If you have need of a caterer in the greater Seattle area I strongly recommend them.  This is the second party they've catered for us and they do an amazing job.  If you don't need a caterer but do need a good restaurant recommendation, be sure to visit her restaurant:  Pomegranate (in Redmond, WA).  Lisa and Jonathan have saved us poor Eastsiders from a life of culinary boredom.   Party pictures coming soon!

Cola linked to kidney problems?

There was an interesting post - er article - in the New York Times today about a link between drinking cola (diet or sugary) and kidney problems.

In a study published in the journal Epidemiology, the team compared the dietary habits of 465 people with chronic kidney disease and 467 healthy people. After controlling for various factors, the team found that drinking two or more colas a day — whether artificially sweetened or regular — was linked to a twofold risk of chronic kidney disease.

But drinking two or more noncola carbonated drinks a day, they found, did not increase the risk.

Good thing I don't drink that stuff anymore...

Update

Yesterday he went to work for 2.5 hours (I drove him).  Then he came home and worked a few more hours from home. It was his first day without a nap.  He said he was a little tired. 

Today he woke up at 6am and worked out on the elliptical machine, then drove himself to a coffee date.

It may sound like "too much" but he's actually doing fine and not overly pushing himself.  He'll be home by 11am today with time for a nap if he needs it. 

Check your mail to see if you have an invite to his "I Am Not Dead Yet" party.  Please RSVP if you haven't yet.  If you'd like to come and we overlooked you, please email me so I know to send you one.

Act One: Finale

We went to Dr. Weissman's office this morning for a post-op visit. The highlight of the visit was having my 32 piercings removed and replaced with tape. I didn't think they were that bad but it is interesting (and probably not surprising) how much more comfortable you are once they remove 32 staples from your gut.

The rest of the visit concerned follow up steps and the plans for future visits. He gave me the option of talking with Dr. Crossland, or any other doctor, to investigate further treatment but he doesn't think there really is anything to do. Dr. Weissman is confident that they got all of the cancer in the kidney, and that it was confined to the kidney and that all of the lymph nodes they took out along the right side were clean. They can't say "you're 100% clean", though, because there is always a possibility that some microscopic cancer skipped all of the nearby lymph nodes and organs and went somewhere else to set up shop. It is really unlikely, but possible.

So the next steps are to come back every six months for the next five years and get a chest X-Ray each time, and then a CAT scan or a liver test on alternating visits. If I am still clear after five years, they call me cured. If something pops up, well, we go deal with that. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Everything else in life can start ramping up again though the big limitation is no heavy lifting for 6 weeks from the date of surgery. The definition of heavy lifting is a little vague - I've heard of limits as low as 5 pounds - but since my laptop weighs 6.8 pounds, I'm going to put the limit closer to 10 which seems a lot simpler than having to go out and buy a new laptop.

Driving - as soon as I feel I can safely turn the steering wheel hard and slam on the brakes if I need to.
Work - ease back into it, I'll get tired pretty easily but no big physical limitations
Alcohol - no prob, but not with any narcotics
Ibuprofen - never. Ibuprofen, and all NSAIDS are kidney toxic. Now that I'm down to one, I need to be extra careful on this front.

With that, we said "see ya in 6 months" and left the hospital and this first act of the mutant kidney comes to a close. Oh sure, there is lots of healing still to come, and a perpetual possibility of intestinal blockages now that they've been futzed with but in general, I'm starting back on the on-ramp to regular ol' life (changes notwithstanding) and I am quite happy to be there.

Some Changes on the Way

10 days.

10 intense days from the first pain in my back to yesterday's good news. From "You have cancer" - among the most feared three words in the world - to the presumptive all clear.

I can't help but take this as some sort of a cosmic wake up call. A reminder that life is short and could be shorter than you expect so it is time to get around to all of those things you've been planning on getting around to. I made one big change last fall when I left Microsoft and started working at DeepRockDrive but now it is time for a few more changes - some big, some small and some I won't even know about for months to come.

#1 Better Exercise.
Last summer I bought a cool new bike and started riding to work. I love the freedom of continuing on past the cars stuck in traffic. I love that my commute became my exercise time (how efficient!). I even liked that this meant that I was exercising twice a day. Today, I joined the Cascade Bicycle Club and signed up for the RSVP. The Ride from Seattle to Vancouver and Party. It's gonna take a lot of work to get there but it sounds like a blast and should be fun to train for.

#2 No More Diet Soda
I've been quite hooked on diet cola for many, many years now. On a slow day, it's 2-3 cans. On a big day it is much more. It was my source of caffeine. I always figured, though, that it had to be bad for me. It is just a bunch of chemicals - nothing natural in there. I have no proof that it causes kidney cancer but I also don't have proof that it doesn't impact it in some way so I'm dumping it. Now, I'm in the market for a new beverage of choice. I'm trying to like tea but that is slow in coming. Current leader - water. Suggestions?

#3 Less Intensity, More Intensely
I've often been an all or nothing kind of guy. When I started a project that was really exciting to me, it would take a huge amount of my focus and other things would fall to the side. In this new post-mutated world I intend to better balance my interests and my relationships. This doesn't mean that I won't get a bunch of things done at work on tight schedules, but I will be more deliberate about how I balance my time and energy between all of the things I'm involved in.

This definitely means making more time for family and friends. The support I've received over the past 10 (11 now) days has been so incredibly touching and meaningful to me and I am sad that many of the people who have been there are people I haven't seen for a long time. That I hope to change.

It's kinda handy that this happened at the beginning of the year. I didn't have any New Year's resolutions this year and perhaps these will fill that role but with a much more sobering initiator.

Doing Better Every Day

Tomorrow we go out to get the staples removed...32 of them!  The man looks like someone installed a zipper right up his middle.  Chris got up and around today, made himself lunch (Margo and I ditched him and went out to lunch!  HA!) and got a few conference calls done at work.  I just asked him:  "Have you napped today?"  He said "Not completely." 

You know what we call that around here?

Resisting a rest.

We'll let you know what the doctor says tomorrow.

Happy Dance!

Dr. Weissman called this morning with the pathology report on my kidney cancer. It is as good as we could ever hope for.

• Renal cell cancer was confined to the kidney itself (this is fantastic - it had not spread!)
• Lymph nodes were completely clear. Enlarged, but they had no cancer in them.
• Tumor was 12 cm, pretty big, which makes it a low stage 2 cancer but only because of the size of the tumor

The net is, that it was confined to the kidney and they got all of that so things look very, very positive. The next steps are to get my staples removed and then we'll have some other questions about the recovery. As far as cancer follow up, we'll be doing CAT scans every 6 months or so to look for any recurrence. There is no plan for radiation therapy or chemo because this type of cancer doesn't respond to it and, beside, we think it is pretty much gone.

Everyone at the Evans house is doing a happy dance today :)

Not much new

Hanging around today.  A very very rainy, then snowy day.  Margo and I ran a few errands, but mostly just hung around the house.  Chris got some good naps in, watched some TV in his upstairs office (stairs are no problem), talked to work folks, and had some good snacks.  We're expecting a call from Dr. Weissman tomorrow to let us know the pathology situation.  Were the lymph nodes cancerous?  What kind of cancer was it?  This will help determine our next course of action. 

As we understand it now, our course of action is likely the same either way:  regular CT scans to see if it crops up anywhere else.   But I'm guessing we will have more details after we know the details of the pathology report. 

Chili last night, bbq sandwiches tonight, and subs tomorrow.  Mmmm!  SO NICE to have people bringing us dinner!  And appreciated, too.  We're all pretty wiped out.