BOB JK My diary of kidney cancer (to be continued)
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Hi, My name is Bob and I live in Cambridgeshire. I am married with an 8 yr old daughter and three older step sons. Up untill the end of last year everything was tickety boo having recently moved to a new house which we love. Work was busy but enjoyable. I am Manager of an electrical companys maintenance department and my Wife, Linda was enjoying her job as a Nurse. The three boys are buying there own house nearby and all work locally. In November I went to my Doctors with a small "cyst" on my chest. After a couple of referals and many Xrays, pet scans, bone scans and CT scans I was told the news everybody dreads. My lump on the chest was a secondary cancer of which the primary was in my left Kidney. I was fast tracked to the Royal Brompton, under the expert care of Mr Laddas who informed a long and complicated operation would need to be carried out to remove the bone tumor and surrounding bone which involved two ribs,my collar bone and chest bone. I did not have time to panic, the operation was carried out the next day over 10 hrs. After nearly two weeks in the Brompton I am recovering well from this op but I have since been told that the Cancer is in both kidneys as well as small mets in both lungs. It seems at the moment further ops are out the question and i have been put on the drug Sutent. I am one week into this and so far so good. I do not know what the future holds but I have to remain positive.
Hi Ya Bob, Sorry you prob don't know my history, but my Mum passed away 3rd Jan 2008, she was only told she had secondary bone cancer in oct 2007 so for us it was like a whirl wind of emotions etc. My Mum was 71 which is no age at all (now days as we were told) Anyway I have a little girl of 11 and I know all about their feelings you were really brave to sit with her and talk about how you would look over her. I know even at my age I would have loved my Mum to have had said that to me, Although on a lighter note my Mum did say to my husband "I'll be watching you and Dawn" (sorry about this bit) "obviously not in the bedroom" which my husband fell about laughing and her answer was "Oh you know what I mean" So she did have a bit of a giggle right to the end. Anyway I will be back on in the morning as I must get my little one to school in the morning without pushing my eyes up the road. Have a good rest Love and Hugs D
A long night is was but I did drop off at some point and feel not too bad today. After feeding Mollie and taking Linda up a cup of tea, myself and Kate are cuddled together watching the Didney channel.
Today i need to ring my consultant to get a member of his team to cast an eye on my wound whilst in London tomorrow and organise files for blod tests. Then next monday when I go to see Professor Gore we can look at the whole picture.
Bob, the thread above yours, from Ben and Ellen's mum ( another Helen), listed 'why is the world still turning' is also about a kidney cancer sufferer just diagnosed, I wonder if you could have a chat?
I had a poor nights sleep and evena sleeping tablet made no difference. I spent a good part of the night watching recorded rubbish and also spent some time on here gassing to various folk. This morning we took Kate to school and then called in at our doctors surgery to let the practice nurse check the wound and prescribe more dressings. I still have a hole within the wound but the leaking appears to be slowing a bit. Tomorrow we travel down to London again for a bone scan and blood tests. I return on Monday to get the results. As before it feels like I will be going back on Monday to get my tarrott cards read and I suppose it is a bit like that. Hopefully things will be fine but one thing this cancer game is, is unpredictable.
Hi, Hope all goes well and the journey isn't too much for you. This may not help but after I had my daughter I had cyst removed from my inner thigh, the wound was rather deep and it got infected, I used silver healing plasters on it the big ones and the wound cleared up really quickly, I don't know the size of your wound but maybe its worth mentioning to to nurse about these dressings, I'll try to be on later but I've got a meeting up the school then dance classes. Bye
Bob, hope you aren't too exhausted by the day.......silver dressings work well, I agree, dawnmymum.....I had some after a fall when I got tangled up with my bike's chain wheel, Caz was just about to go through stem cell transplant and I wanted to be with her, the deep wound just healed in time!
We left for London after dropping Kate off at school and arrived just in time to have injection of dye at twelve oclock. parking was horrendous plus they are digging up the road everywhere to lay new gas pipes. Every traffic light was red and we got stuck behind every bus going into central London. After dye was injected we went for a spot of lunch. Finally at three I went back for the bone scan and it was really uncomfortable lying in a scannable position. Then they did a couple of extra scans before we were done. Eventually after five we set off for home . Linda did brilliantly, driving both ways and with no sat nav. Kate is now home but one of the cats is missing, hopefully to return home when ready.
