Kidney Don't Fail Me Now!

It's been a while since I've jotted down my thoughts. It's been 8 months since surgery and 6 months since immunotherapy began.  I've got be honest - the pain and discomfort of surgery is a distant memory. The every three week poking and prodding (blood work and infusion) is just matter of fact. I look at it as getting to take a day off work every three weeks. Heck, even the rash and itching is normal now. Where is my Triamcinolone? It's a little tragic - I'm taking daily life for granted again. Work goes Monday through Friday. Poker goes Friday and Saturday (okay, sometimes Sunday) nights. Sunday is for visiting mom, lamenting the weekend and psyching myself for another Monday morning.  On the other hand, there are times of stress and terror. Time between a CT scan and the doctor's call is especially unnerving. There's always some doubt for the day or two after a CT. An old running buddy who is a survivor mentioned to be that there will always be some st...

NOTE: I originally wrote this to post back on my birthday - 1/12. Today is 1/29. I got lazy and stored this away as a draft, but then forgot it was there!. So, I'm posting it today. Has it really been 5 months? Yeah. Kind of blows my mind. It's one week shy of 5 months since surgery for something I never thought I would need to face. The last time I left a note here was a couple of days after my first immunotherapy session. A lot has happened since: On the medical front: Two additional immunotherapy sessions with the only side effect being some itching. Blood work and labs that seem to show that my body is adjusting to life with one kidney. Creatinine is higher than normal, but trending in the right direction. Dr. Pal says this is normal. CT scans (done last Wednesday) that came back clean and showing no evidence of metastasis. On the life front: I've been back to work since November 18th. Meh. It was much more fun with the two "B"s - baking and boring. There has ...

Chapter 2 has started. Not that I thought I would ever open this book. Immunotherapy started on Wednesday. As I mentioned in the last post, I'll be driving to Duarte every three weeks for the next year.  The routine will be: Show up for labs (this time it was only three vials of blood) Visit with the doctor to look at lab results and discuss any active side effects Visit the infusion session for about an hour to get poked and prodded  The first session was uneventful. The only sensation was the feeling of something cold being infused into my arm. Hoping that portends things to come! Note: As I complete this write up 4 days after the infusion, I *think* I'm starting to have a side effect. Either that, or I slept in itching powder last night. Oh well. It certainly beats the alternative!

I've had to be patient entering the "next chapter" in my care. The chapter started with a transition from my surgeon (thank you Dr. Yamzon!) to an oncologist who specializes in kidney cancer, Dr. Sumanta Pal. Dr. Pal is the reason that we chose City of Hope in the first place. He has quite the CV and reputation as an expert in renal cell carcinoma. My initial consult was on October 11. We talked about the pathology report in some detail. The final pathology results is that I have a type of cancer called Clear Cell Renal Carcinoma. Apparently, I have some type of genetic mutation that is found in a lot of people who have this type of cancer. The prognosis is that there is a 30-40% chance the cancer will reoccur as Clear Cell Carcinoma in other areas of my body (lungs, brain, lymph nodes). The current standard of care for my situation is immunotherapy using pembrolizumab (Keytruda). Immunotherapy uses drugs to boost a patient's immune system to attack and destroy cancer...