4 years since I blogged. Thanks, cancer.

An introduction: 

 Hi, I am Amy. 

I am a 33 year old clear cell renal carcinoma cancer survivor. I am incredibly lucky. I have a host of different health issues, most urinary tract/kidney related. I have been a chronic kidney stone maker since middle school. I have had countless surgeries, nephrostomy tubes, lithotripsies, done to get rid of stones. Mostly in my left kidney. 

Last October, I was having pretty funky pain on my left side.

 A few months prior, I had a CT scan done in the ER for kidney stones. Nothing out of the ordinary showed up. My urologist decided to have a CT scan with contrast done. A few days after, he tells me there is a small mass in the left kidney. May be harmless, may be cancer. We will wait 6 months and repeat the CT with contrast. 

In March of this year, I go back to the same CT machine and have more contrast flushed through me. The next night, I get a phone call from the urologist. It has gotten bigger, and is being fed by lots of blood vessels. The mass is "probably" cancer. At the office the next day he tells me it is 1.5 cm and is a great candidate for Radio Frequency Ablation.  He tells me there are two doctors in Columbus, Ohio who perform RFA and I want to go to the one with the most experience. Enter my dream doctor: Dr. Jonathan Lee, MD .   I'm like, wait a minute ... this guy looks like he is fresh out of High School. The uro says, if you were my wife or daughter, he is who would do the surgery. 

 So we meet with Dr. Lee. I schedule for the soonest available appointment, April 2nd, 2014 (my 9th wedding anniversary).  RFA is an outpatient procedure. They start an IV, give you some sleepy juice, put you in a CT scanner and insert a “cooking needle” (yes, that made me cringe too) into the kidney tumor through the back. The CT guides the radiologist to the tumor where he takes a biopsy and then destroys the tumor and surrounding tissue with heat. 

 I wake up and my bladder is fucking killing me (thank you, interstitial cystitis). My back and side is sore. But I still have a left kidney. Dr. Lee feels super confident that he was able to get clean margins, without sacrificing too much kidney tissue. I go home with my husband and take ALL THE PILLS. Pain pills, anti-nausea pills, bladder pills. 

 Two days later, the dream doctor calls and tells me “you had cancer”. Which is a very strange thing to tell someone, I suppose. Stage 1 Renal Cell Carcinoma, Clear Cell Grade 2. But, margins are good and I will see him in 3 months for another scan. The next day, I pass some tissue looking stuff in my pee and the urologist wants me to come in and look in my bladder with a camera to make sure there aren’t any tumors in there. 

Awesome. 

So that happens, and everything looks good (as good as a bladder with IC could look). And then the uro mentions the spots on your lungs that showed up on the CT scans. So lets get a chest x ray. 

Awesome. 

 So that happens, and apparently they aren’t anything to be worried about (haha). Normal calcifications. We’ll keep an eye on them. In August, I have an MRI with contrast. Everything looks good. We might use pictures of your ablation in textbooks, Dr. Dreamy says. Also, if you ever have another kidney attack and they do imaging, you are probably going to have to have them look up the procedure you had done, because hardly anyone knows about it. And they might think the “charcoal” is actually a tumor. Anywho, you are doing fine. I’ll see you in April for another scan. 

 I go back to work a week later, starting a brand new job. I feel like I have a really weird secret. I feel like it really didn’t happen. I didn’t lose my kidney. I didn’t get chemo. I have all my hair. I feel like I am not a "legit" cancer survivor.  

People with cancer are much sicker than I was.  

I was lucky. Lucky to have kidney stones.  Lucky to have a doctor who fought my insurance company to have the CT contrast used, which showed my tumor.  Lucky it was contained in my kidney, a 1.5 cm mass of cells who were on a mission to kill me. Lucky to be able to have a procedure done that spared my kidney.

I guess luck is all relative.