BOB JK My diary of kidney cancer (to be continued)
FormerMember
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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 bob. so pleased to hear about your phone call from the marsden. can i ask what did they do to you, daves cancer has moved to his brain and they have done radiotherapy to him but am sure i read yours was different treatment. he has 8 tumours in there.
take care and love to you and yours. karen xxxxxxxxxx
Hi Karen, when my cancer first spread to the brain, I had Gamma knife surgery which is basically a precision pointed ray of radiation at each tumour. At that point I had 16 tumours. Since then i have had two more sessions of gamma and only three months ago there were too many to treat with Gamma so had to have whole brain radiation therapy. The beauty of gamma is it can be treated more than once although it is a bit painful as it involves bolting a metal frame to your skull. The disadvantage of whole brain radiation is that you can only do it once and there are no guarantees on success. Also you do loose all your hair. Great if it works but will not stop cancer from going to brain again, hope that helps and the best of luck to Dave.
Indeed the holiday did tick lots of boxes and looking back, we had a great time. Today has been filled with washing and drying. I did help for a bit but tiredness eventually took over. I did cook an evening roast though so all was not lost. Not sure how im gonna fare but im hoping to get back in to work this week, if only for a few hours. Im never going to be more rested than I feel at the moment and , for my own reasons, need to give work another chance. We have a meeting at the London hospital with Professor Gores registrar tomorrow so will run things by her. Although the phone call on Tuesday was good news I need face to face confirmation that all is well for a while before committing myself back to work.
ive just found out 3wks ago i have kidney cancer with secondary liver,womb and bone cancer.i start on chemo(sutent) tomorrow this is the only treatment left for me.good luck to you,you will be in my thoughts.stay well xxx
