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 urethra when they take my kidney out. It's weird to have something like that implanted into your body - I can actually feel it when I pee. The urine flushes through it and that's exactly when it starts hurting big time. I adopted a new strategy for that. Before I release my muscles to let the urine out, I start singing. Not a particular song, but anything that pops into my head. It's better than moaning, for some reason it makes the whole procedure less hurtful.

Even though I am extraordinarily relaxed for someone who just got broken the news of having a 6.2 cm tumor in his left kidney, I do think about the possibility that tomorrow's scan might come back with the undesired outcome. What if there are metastases already? Well, that would suck. But for some reason that I can't explain, I do feel extremely confident at this point and therefore, even if that going to be the case, I am prepared to do anything to fight my cancer.

I am 37 years old and in paramount health - well, except for that thing in my kidney. I have faith and I believe that because of the way I see cancer, I will have a very good shot getting rid of it.

I wonder for how long that tumor has been growing there. There was never any real kidney cancer symptom I encountered, but given the tumor's size I think it had to be there for a few years already. But I guess it all depends on its aggressiveness. I think every cancer patient tries to answer that question for him or herself: how did I get my cancer (in addition to the most obvious one: WHY did I get cancer).
And as for any other one diagnosed with the "C", I don't know the answer. But if I had to guess, this is what I think happened: the amounts of beer I consumed over almost two decades disabled my body to discharge the uric acid that is build up while drinking alcohol excessively. I therefore got gout. Gout in principal, is a form of inflammation. And cancer thrives in an inflammatory environment. I think my kidneys simply got overwhelmed by the workload I assigned them with.

 

Well, of course the doctors disagree with my hypothesis. But I disagree with their thinking of cancer just being a random occurrence, too. It’s like with saying that smoking causes cancer. Well, that’s not true. Because that would mean that everybody who smokes will get cancer. We know that this is not the case. On the other hand, everybody agrees that there is an undeniable and commonly acknowledged link between the likelihood of developing cancer and smoking.

 

Should I be more depressed at this point? In a way I feel almost guilty, that I am not laying in bed all day long with my blanked pulled over my head sobbing. Well, I arranged with my boss and co-workers to take some time off (thanks guys, you’re the greatest, hands down!!) to focus on myself and also for logistical reasons  - running all over the place to see doctors, take tests, surgeries and all that is almost a full time job in itself. But other than that I just keep on going normally. I make the same stinky jokes, okay, now with more references to cancer and death, I laugh a lot, I’m being silly with my step-daughters as usual, and so forth. And then I have people reaching out to me from all over, telling me how sorry they are for me and offering me there help. That makes me feel bad, because I shouldn’t feel good – at least not to the degree I do now. It makes me almost being ashamed because everybody shows me so much empathy and support. And here I am joking. For instance, I consultancy company I work with asked me for my home address when they learned about my cancer. I am sure, thoughtfully as they are, just to send me a little cheer-up to my house. So I emailed them my address not with missing out on the opportunity to mention to refrain from sending condolences to my wife prematurely as I am not dead yet. I thought that was funny. My wife thought that was horrible (even though she laughed). Luckily, they know me well enough by now to not get offended and take just take it as a bad joke.