I have Kidney-Cancer.

On October 1st, 11:57 AM, my phone in my office rang. It was the urologist asking me how I was feeling. I told him, that I was okay, nothing special going on. He then told me, that the results of my CAT Scan came back and he reviewed the slides. There wasn't any signs of kidney stones - that's what we all thought it was, after I found blood in my urine  - however, there is a 6 Centimeter (2.5 inches) mass in one of my kidneys.

He then kept talking to me for another 3-5 minutes but I couldn't really follow what he was telling me. I thought that this was just a dream or so. My wife Ann was diagnosed with breast-cancer earlier this year (please check my website planetcaravan72.com which I dedicated to our battle with her cancer).

And now me, too. And it's not a dream.

He says it appears that the cancer is contained, however, more testing is required to confirm his assumption. But in case the cancer has already spread, as he explained further to me, we might need to take out the urinary tract and etc. etc. etc. - that's when I blocked everything out. Too much at once for me. Too much information. Not that I was scared, it's just a state of emptiness. I just didn't understand. Yes, I did have blood in my urine, but I never thought of that being a kidney cancer symptom.


I told him that I will call him back. I then called my wife and broke her the news. She began to cry and asked me over and over again, what exactly the urologist had told me. As if she was waiting to hear and inconsistency in my story, which then could be taken as a sign that I misheard something. But I did not mishear anything. "6 centimeter mass", "kidney removal", "cancer", etc., he all said that and he was very coherent, no sign ob uncertainty.

I then drove home and boy, it seemed to take forever. It's the same commute, every day, and there wasn't even any traffic. Ann was waiting and she had tears in her eyes. I then told her again what the doctor said. She held me closely and kept saying: "No", "No", "No".

I was going back and forth with this, but then I made the decision, to basically tell everybody right away about my cancer. Not that I started an advertising campaign or posted an add on the internet, however, the people close to me will learn about it anyway sooner or later. So I started my round call: the close family members and selected people at work. It is a horrible thing to do and I felt almost guilty. Because what you do is dumping something completely unexpected on to people and they struggle to find an appropriate response - even though there isn't any. And I felt sorry for them and actually apologized - which actually made the whole situation even more awkward.

Ann then called the urologist's office back and asked what the next steps are. They instructed us to get clearance from my primary care provider to put my under anesthesia for the Cystoscopy they scheduled for next week. In case you don't know what a Cystoscopy is, here is a concise description of the procedure:

'In this procedure, a cystoscope (thin, telescope-like tube with a light and tiny camera attached) is inserted into the bladder through the urethra (tube that carries urine from the bladder out of the body).'

Sounds like an awful lot of fun, doesn't it? I'm not a fan of anesthesia, but I tell you, one thing is for sure: the thought alone of having a tube shoved up my penis wants to make be blow a bullet in my head. So YES, please knock me out for that. I want to be sound asleep during that whole thing.

Okay, so I guess as of now, there are two possible scenarios. Either the cancer is contained in the kidney or it has already spread further. In case it is still contained, they will remove the kidney and I will have to recover for a few weeks - that's it.
And if it has already spread, well, I guess I have to cross that bridge once I get there.