Hi, I just found out about this community today when I was trying to read about my dads diagnosis so I thought I would share his story since its a little different. This April my dad who just turned 52 was recently diagnosed with stage 4 renal cell carcinoma. It came as quite a shock to us all as my dad has always been pretty healthy. The only thing he really struggles with is high blood pressure which is nothing new and he's on medication. He originally went to the doctors back in October of 2020 to be put on medication for that, the doctor did a full exam, bloodwork and everything was terrific no issues. Jump to around February he started having pain in his right knee, he tried to ignore it by taking over the counter medications and using braces from the store...nothing was working. It got to the point where it was becoming intolerable so he made an appt. to get in with his doctor as he could barely put weight on it anymore. The doctor ordered an x-ray which showed a destructive lesion on his tibia just below the knee which was eating through the bone. Following that they ordered an MRI which showed another tumor on his right femur and another small one starting above that. He was then ordered to stay off his leg as they feared it would break. Upon further scans and tests we got the shocking news that he had renal cell. They said it originated in his kidneys and metastasized to the bone. He had one tumor on each kidney over 7cm each. A nodule on each lung (less than 2cm). A 4cm tumor behind his shoulder and then the 4cm tumor on his tibia and 4cm tumor on his femur with another small one starting. He got in for immediate surgery for the tumor on his tibia where they were able to fully remove it and took a biopsy. He was in a lot of pain and in the hospital for a couple days but he did great! After a couple weeks he started having increased pain in his femur. When he was going in for a follow-up from his previous surgery they did x-rays and the tumor was growing rapidly so they planned surgery for a couple days later. The surgery on his femur ended up being 6hrs as it was basically 2 surgeries at one time. He basically had hip surgery as well after they removed the tumor. The lesion ate through 2/3 of his femur they put a rod down through his hip and put plates in at the bottom. The doctor was shocked he didn't break it! Its been a couple weeks since surgery and he's doing great his legs healing wonderful even though the pain was horrific for the first week! He recently started his first immunotherapy treatment (opdivo). He will start a chemotherapy pill once his leg fully heals (cabometyx). He will also be getting targeted radiation to his leg to make sure the tumors don't come back. His doctors gave him over a 50% chance. The thing about my dads cancer that is so strange to me is that it's stage 4 yet every test they do comes back great. Nothing has reached his internal organs its just the outside of the kidneys and lung, and hasn't spread to his lymph nodes its literally just his bones. His bloodwork, kidney function, urine samples and oxygen levels are all fantastic. Just curious if anyone knows or has had a similar experience and what it was like?
