I know my 63 yr old husband is going to die because he has incurable advanced cancer of a kidney. After being initially shellshocked, distraught, frightened at this awful news, then getting on with it and doing my very best to support my husband in this illness, I feel now like I want to tell the tale. I've been reading the forums for weeks but have never seen anything similar to our case and would love some input.
I persuaded, well nagged my husband to go to the GP in late May with a cough, night sweats and feeling tired and looking very pale at times. The GP identified a heart murmur and high blood pressure, and set up an 'urgent' referral to a cardiologist (which came through for the second week of July). He showed such a level of concern that I was worried he had identified heart failure and that my husbands days were numbered.
Meanwhile blood tests the following week showed bad anaemia, which was treated with an iron infusion a week later at the local hospital where they did various basic tests and suggested men at his age could have developed coeliac problems or thyroid issues. At the second iron infusion a fortnight later he had a temperature and this led to a chest x ray being taken which showed up something the ambulatory care team were concerned about, and they arranged for a CT scan for a week later, warning us there could well be a tumour somewhere in the abdomen, and he would be referred to the relevant clinic for whatever it was after the result came through.
When the CT scan was reported the GP came to see us and explained that it showed a huge lesion on a kidney which was attached to the abdominal wall and the spleen, a metastic cyst on the same kidney, mets on both lungs with pleural effusion at one lung, and extensive mets on his liver, also a lesion on his spine.
We had to wait another two weeks for the MDT team meeting to apparently discuss a treatment plan, having been warned by the GP it was incurative but treatable with chemo, radiotherapy, but the road ahead would be rocky.
