Hi everybody:

I hope everybody has been doing fine. I completely forgot about my cancer. Well, not really. The truth of the matter is, there’s not a day going by where I don’t think about either my renal cell carcinoma or my wife’s breast cancer. And that sucks big time. I don’t know if it’s the fear of recurrence, or just that lingering notion of  “hey, that could have been the end.” And there are the constant reminders that make sure that there is no possible way to put the ...

Hi everybody:

I apologize for not having put up any posts here over the past few weeks. The fact of the matter is, my work-life got me back again. And once you’re back into the daily routine there is not much time left for other things. In addition to that, I’ve been working on another Internet project and I might talk a little bit about that later.

My cancer recovery is going very well. Absolutely no pain even during or after heavy workouts. There’s little bit of a pinch every now an...

I wish everybody a Happy and Healthy New Year 2010.

I guess I’m not much of a party person. I went to bed before 9:00pm last night and had a good night sleep. Fortunately, there wasn’t too much firework activity going on, on our block.

The recovery process is still going well. Last Monday though, I had to get back to New York Presbyterian because one of my incisions started to discharge a yellowish substances and it started to burn. There is a relatively deep wound now and it looks kin...

I am happy to report that the recovery process is going remarkably well. There are obviously a few things I can’t do, like stretching, jogging, lifting heavy things, but I can walk and move around normally. What amazes me the most, though; there aren’t any dietary restriction and the fact that I don’t feel any difference living with one kidney only. I thought that there would have been a short period of adjustment until the remaining kidney fully takes over for the missing one. But no, ...

Okay, we just returned from New York Presbyterian and our follow-up visit with my surgeon, Dr. Badani. He was extremely satisfied with the progress of my recovery, which exceeded even his expectations. I had a feeling that he was about to brake some bad news to me as he proceeded to tell me about the pathology report. I will keep it short, because there is not much to tell you anyway: Every thing is clear. The pathology was done on four specimens, the left ureter, a soft tissue sample (perire...

Well, it was a week ago when I was laying in the ‘Recovery Room’ in the Milstein Building of the Columbia University/Urology section, on the 3^rd floor. I remember that my throat hurt terribly because of the tube that was inserted through my month to help me breathing during the laparoscopic nephrectomy. I recall saying to myself: “here I am now, a kidney cancer patient with Renal Cell Carcinoma, who just had his left kidney removed, and all I’m worrying about is my darn throat.” I�...

(Giving "The Machine" its due - a picture of the "Da Vinci" Robot - the same type that was used during the removal of my left kidney)


Time flies by, doesn’t it? I has been almost already a week ago, when I had my surgery done. Well, I’m still wearing might hospital gown. I love that thing, it’s extremely practical plus it just adds on perfectly to the whole image of a suffering patient. Hehehe, I know, I’m evil and sinister. We had actually some snow yesterday but it seems to melt away...

(Photo of my abdomen with the stitches after the surgery)

Last night I was in terrible pain for a about 30 minutes. But surprisingly, it wasn’t the abdomen that caused me such tremendous discomfort, but my right shoulder. I’ve been picking my brain since why on earth my shoulder and not my back, for instance. Because after all, most of time I’m sitting on my butt on rather cushiony stuff. That can get to your back after a while, but the shoulder? But I just received a call from my brot...

(has been waiting patiently for me to return from the hospital: Puppy Troy)

Pretty much exactly 72 hours ago, the anesthesiologists brought me into the operating room for my surgery. Ann and I talked about that very moment yesterday. She had tears in her eyes when they came to get me. I remember that - as nervous as it was for me– I was so relieved that it was me having the procedure done and not her. For selfish reasons, because I wouldn’t have been able to deal with my worries if it had ...

Back from the hospital since yesterday afternoon. Surgery went well. I’m in a lot of pain and discomfort, but confident that things are changing slowly to the better. Thanks for all the positive comments and emails. I will catch up with you later.

NOW I’m starting to get nervous. But I guess that’s normal and therefore okay. It’s was such a beautiful day today, so I was going for a walk earlier. I needed to be alone for a while. There is too much in my head. It feels like I’m in desperate need to unload a huge pile of baggage I’ve been dragging around for a long time. At this point, I just got to let go. It’s not in my hands anymore. The good thing is, I have faith and I am very grateful that it’s going to be me having th...

Since last night I’ve been passing blood with my urine again. All I did was a little bit of super light clean up around the house during the day. But I felt the aggravation immediately inside my left abdominal area. Today it’s even worse. It’s not painful, just annoying and kind of scary. Now I also understand why my first doctor asked me several times if I wanted to have the stent removed. I can see how the discomfort could potentially turn into pain at some point. Coincidentally, I re...

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! What can I say: the sun is shining again today. Not literally, but you know what I mean. I got a call from the hospital yesterday, briefing me on the logistics for my upcoming surgery on Monday next week. We got to get there by 5:30am. This makes me believe that they must get to operate on me quite early. That’s great! The only problem: I had hoped to get in touch with my surgeon before the surgery, because I wanted to double check with him that he’s going t...

Today is one of these days. Everything is grey. The sky, the bank-account, the remaining credit-card limit and the even the cancer. I’m not trying to be a ‘pity-me’ cry-baby, but I just woke up that way. There’s this little sting in my chest and right thigh. It’s probably nothing, but in the overbearing grand scheme of cancer, you can’t help but to think that this must be little metastases forming up. Of course, I know it’s irrational, but on a day like today, I would even refus...

This commenting functionality here is a real pain in the behinder. Your comments are VERY important to me, so I want them to be visible here. I don’t know what it is. It seemed to work for a little while, but now there seems to be an issue again. But either way, I can assure you that your comments never get lost – I always get a copy through email. So until this problem gets resolved some day, I will make sure that your comments will make it over in one way or another.

I think I was ab...

In a week from now, Dr. Badani will probably give commands like “LEFT”, “RIGHT”, “UP”, “DOWN”, speaking into a microphone that’s attached to his headset.

The headset is connected to a computer that will translate the speech into machine language. A millisecond later, the de-coding process will be completed and the result submitted to the operating Robot. That’s good, because the Robot that will actually cut me open and take out my kidney along with the tumor, doesn’t u...

I think I’m slowly emerging from the down I was going through for the past few days. Sue being a constant reminder of the positive and Gods grace, me learning to accept the fact that there are things beyond my control, plus a few little cheer-ups of all sorts and kinds  - for instance, look at the picture atop of this post: that’s my niece Hannah, she can light up a room instantaneously  - yes, I think I’m slowly getting back on track.

One of the most profoundly import things in life...

I’m getting physically weak. No exercise in over six weeks is not good for me. I’m addicted to table tennis, and after cross country skiing and swimming it’s on the same level with badminton with regard to strenuousness. And I’ve been playing soccer and tennis on a decently high level back in Germany, but that’s nothing comparable to 2-3 times a week of hitting that little ball over the net. It’s the best physical exercise ever, hands down. It keeps me in shape and compensates for...

This is going to be a very personal posting. I did something very embarrassing and stupid which I’m truly ashamed of. A few months ago my wife bought concert tickets to a Miley Cyrus show for last Sunday. Well, I’m born in ’72 and a die-hard Blues and Rock-Fan, so my interest in Miley’s work is rather limited, however, my wife wanted to give our two girls something exciting they would look forward to. Our younger one, Britney, didn’t really care about the concert. But Jenny got more...

Dr. Badani just called. Very nice of him! Most doctors would’ve waited until the next day. Anyway, he carefully reviewed my CT-Slides and concluded that a partial nephrectomy can’t be done due to the location of the tumor. Therefore, the kidney will be removed entirely and laparoscopically (Laparoscopic Radical Nephrectomy).

So, I’m glad that I have clarity on this now. My wife Ann was a little sad over the news; she had high hopes that a part of the kidney could’ve been spared. B...

First, let me apologize to Sue, Kim and Ashley who had previously left comments on some of my posts. I am still relatively new to website building and all that, so I must have messed something up with the commenting feature. I spent several hours trying to fix it, with limited success. I ended up having the comments manually added back to the respective posts under my alias. Again, I’m sorry for that! I hope that from now on everything will work smoothly.
Secondly, I’d like to congratulate...

When Ann got diagnosed with her breast-cancer, we consciously decided to let our two daughters (I’m their step-dad) Jenny and Britney (15, 13) know what happened. As we went on to see doctors and go for treatments, etc. we certainly did not share all details with them all the time. Further to that, we tried to keep our fear and worries away from them.
And when I was diagnosed just a few weeks ago with kidney cancer, we told them right away, too.
We received a lot of criticism for deciding to ...

I am very sorry. Unbeknownst to me, it was not possible for readers to comment on my blog entries. This has been fixed now. So if you wish to leave a comment, just click on the according title of the blog entry and a comment box will pop up. Thank you, Sue, for spotting that and letting me know.

Dr. Badani’s office called me last night. They got a cancellation and therefore they asked me if I wanted the open spot. That’s great, because now my surgery is scheduled for November 30th. Tha...

We just came back from Columbia Presbyterian and our visit with Dr. Badani. I am greatly impressed by his thoroughness and patience. Unfortunately, I had never requested a copy of the report of my Ureteroscopy and the slides of my CT-Scan. And Dr. Badani made it very clear that he does need to see both in order to make a conclusive assessment of the situation.

But based on what he had today (PET-Slides and report, CT-Report) he assumes that we are talking about a "traditional" RCC, not trans...

For the past two days I have this idea lingering in my head. Ann told me about a few men she sees when she’s going to receive her Vitamin C drips. The have all different kinds of cancers and at different stages. Some of them have huge successes by having their diet and lifestyle adjusted and going for regular intravenously administered treatments. A few of them chose to not undergo any conventional treatment – with remarkable developments. Tumors shrunk significantly or disappeared comple...

I just received a very nice email from another kidney-cancer warrior and therefore came across with her website and blog “The accidental tourist”. Her name is Kristy Richardson and here is the link to her blog:

http://kristyraerichardson.blogspot.com/

Kristy started her battle two years ago, therefore gained a lot of knowledge which she decided to share with us. You should definitely stop by there and read her story. She writes from the heart and has a lot of knowledge.

Thanks f...

I’m really confused now. We went to see one of my wife’s Oncologists last Monday and filled him in on my recent kidney cancer diagnosis. Actually, before I go ahead, I got to give the guy a plug:

He’s a wealth of knowledge and a pioneer in the field of hormone imbalance related cancers, such as breast cancer. He therefore is an avid advocate of the concept that breast cancer is preventable and treatable by living a healthy life-style and eating the right things,...

My urologist called me today while I was actually out accompanying my wife for her PET-Scan. We went to the exact same location with the exact same staff. Anyway, the urologist left me a voicemail with the news:

The scan is clear, no signs of metastases anywhere. Secondly, another urine sample he took right out of my kidney while he performed the Cystoscopy Thursday last week, came back negative for malignant cell occurrence.

Yes, of course I am happy and quite relieved. After all, I n...

First things first: I went to my PET Scan last Tuesday at the New Jersey Institution of Radiology in Carlstadt, NJ. The whole thing took about 2.5 hours. First, I had to change into a gown, pants and a robe. I was allowed to keep my underwear on, which I was tremendously grateful for. Then my nurse Eric drew some blood and checked for the glucose level, which turned out to be fine. No wonder, I was told to fast and to have water only since the night before. Eric left the room and came back 30...

Tomorrow is my PET Scan. With a little bit of good luck, the cancer cells didn't make their way to my lungs and bones, yet. In that case I will try to schedule my surgery in order to remove my left kidney as soon as possible. It annoys me, more than anything else.

The pain I suffered from after my Cystoscopy, got gradually better over the past few days. I don't have to pop painkillers every four hours anymore, which is a good thing. I wonder whether they will remove the stent they put into my...

I just had my physical done today to get clearance for Thursday, since they will put me under anaesthesia for the Cystoscopy. Everything is okay, I'm good to go. What really amazed me: I also had bloodwork done as part of the physical, and everything across the board came back in tip-top shape, EVEN my kidney functions. And that's with a 6 Centimeter tumor lingering there in one of them. I wish there was such a thing as a blood-test for cancer.

I also try to train myself not to worry. Which is...

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 m...