BOB JK My diary of kidney cancer (to be continued)
FormerMember
4509 replies
3 subscribers
1622860 views
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.
Morning, Bob, hope you are feeling better and more 'with it' today and have had a good long sleep.......not too long now, and you will have Kate's company each day!
Moomy
FormerMember
Hi Bob and family, sorry to hear you had a rough patch, hope its all on the up now. So glad you keep that sense of humour makes reading your diary easy. It must be hard for you but you do give so many hope. Take care.
FormerMember
At ten oclock Linda put me to bed and at eleven oclock I took myself downstairs after trying relentlesly to sleep. I realised all I was doing was keeping Linda awake and not actually resting myself. I was far too hot and need someone to invent a half duvet and half light sheet for a double bed. I lay on a nice cold leather sofa with boxers and a sheet and I soon drifted off. I have awoken feeling stil a bit heady but possibly a bit better. My face is still falling off all over the place but that is a good sign. Hopefully soon all that can fall of will be gone and I will start to look and feel normal again. I didnt have a good day yesterday and felt like I was on the slippery slope to self destruction, but I have awoken in a much better frame of mind. Everybody quite rightly tells me how well I am doing and I suppose the fall has made me loose confidence in myself a bit. Yesterday I felt like a really miserable Victor Meldrew, not something I wish to repeat and I need to focus on how far I have come rather than on one silly fainting episode.
FormerMember
A much better day yesterday with high hopes that today will fair good as well. I awoke yesterday in a better frame of mind and it continued throughout the day. I still cannot do anything but I managed to stay awake for longer periods throught the day and the headache is a lot more background. I spent a fair bit of the day watching bits I had recorded off the TV. Justin popped over and cut my beloved lawn and watered up for me, the garden is looking good and its down to the fact he has made the effort to keep on top of it. I went to bed about eleven and managed to stay in bed until five this morning so that was pretty good. Linda checked my wound before I showered and took out what looked like slugs but was actually packing material that had turned jelly like. She put a temp dressing on so I could shower and I managed to wash that off with another "slug" appearing on the shower floor. I have just made Linda her second tea and will shortly tackle brekky. I do not feel like eating at all but will do so anyway as I know I need to build my strength back up. The district nurse is due in today to check on progress of wound and then my mum is popping ovelater to babysit me whilst Linda goes food shopping.
FormerMember
Today has gone pretty much as planned. The district nurse has been and wound is at last looking pretty good and hopefully not that far away from healing properly. Linda has been doing lots of jobs around the house and then mum popped over to "keep an eye on me" whilst Linda did some shopping. Kate arrived home with a friend and now Linda has taken Kate to guides and the friend home. Justin is over doing the watering and I even went outside and tinkered for a bit before comming in to rest. Mollie has just gone for her walk and , well I feel about done in but I havnt really slept today so that is probably why. Illsoon put that right, right know.
FormerMember
A fair nights sleep and as a bonus there was not too much of my face left on the pillow when I got up so things are improving day by day. My kidney wound is doing well and im really hopefull by the end of next week I will be dressing free, no more skin irritations, horray.
Kate is midway through her last week at school before the summer holidays and it will be good to spend some time with her. At this stage I am hoping to go back to work next week, very part time only and very flexiable. After next week I have a return visit to London to see professor Gore to discuss the next move. It will probably be a detailed scan of my chest to see progress of mets to lungs. Based on those results my immediate future will be mapped out.
Bob, sounds like things are progressing as well as they can, I do hope that continues! no more fainting needed!
Moomy
FormerMember
No more fainting wanted Helen.
A really, really good nights sleep last night. Yesterday went good although I flagged a bit late afternoon but then rallied a bit in the evening. I can only assume and hope its the concussion still kicking in. My neck is still a bit painfull and my poor nose also a bit tender but apart from that wounds are good.
I have just showered and Linda has changed my Kidney wound dressing and it is apparently closing down well and very clean which is good. I managed to tinker a bit in the garden again yesterday and trimmed and watered a few bits. Matt, my eldest moved a couple of plants for me. Today looks like a sunny start to the day and I intend to make the most of it as it is apparently changing to rain tomorrow.
Mentally I am beginning to feel much stronger and am counting down the days so I can return to work. We have booked a couple of minibreaks which will be good.
Bob, I'm glad you are better rested, a good sleep always helps, doesn't it? Its cloudy here but still very humid......will be good to be a trifle cooler which is forecast with that rain, goodness knows the garden needs it! I dug up a big Bay tree yesterday, and the moisture in the soil round it was only a couple of inches down, the rest was very dry, we had taken all the branches down a few days ago, it was so big it took some digging round too! Needless to say we now have quite a number of dried Bay leaves!
Moomy
FormerMember
Another really good nights sleep last night and so far today I have fed the cats and dog and even managed a good walk with the dog (on my own). Mollie was very good and didn't pull at all. Linda has just taken Kate to start her last day of the summer term at school before finishing for six weeks. The result came back from our surgery where the district nurse took a swab of my wound and, youve guessed it, im back on antibiotics for an infection again. never mind, the wound is healing so the tablets can only presumably help.
Not too much planned for today, I hope to get a hair cut which, by the way has turned back to a darker shade resembling brown since being of the Sutent. There is still a lot of grey which I thinkim stuck with. Its not really supprising to go a bit grey after the last eighteen months we have had is it. I seem to feel pretty good in the mornings, have a dip in the afternoon and then its anyones guess by the evening. Linda popped out with a couple of her friends last night and so I put Kate to bed and then lay on the couch and examined the inside of my eyelids. I was pleased with the result and felt much better when opening them again.
