Four days before my birthday and five days before I signed up for my Army pension in 2018, I was diagnosed with small cell renal cell carcinoma, commonly known as kidney cancer.
I was shoveling snow one day and got chest pains. I went to the clinic in Kenmare and x-rays revealed one spot on each lung. I was transferred to Minot for a CT scan and that’s when it was revealed; a malignant tumor almost the size of the kidney itself.
It has metastasized into my lungs. My heart was just fine and the pain was caused by the cancer that had now spread.
At 59 years old it was devastating and my wife will tell you I was completely distraught. She almost immediately started making phone calls and set up an appointment to see a urologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
Six years later that same urologist, Dr. Bradley Leibovich, who eventually removed my left kidney, told me I was cancer free on a cold Friday morning in downtown Rochester. I didn’t think my mind or body was capable of being that relaxed.
As you might imagine, I spent a lot of time in the cancer library at Mayo Clinic. Dr. Leibovich told me in the initial consult that attitude is half the battle and that knowledge is power. So I took it literally and burned up any free time I had in that Mayo Clinic campus library.
What it came down to is my message today. My cancer was found accidently because of chest pains. And all too often that’s how so many cancers are discovered. I remember the doctor in Minot who crushed me with the diagnosis asking me if there was any blood in my urine. Years later, I asked Dr. Leibovich that same question and he told me had their been blood in the urine, it would have been too late.
No, there wasn’t any blood in the urine, there was no pain, other than the chest discomfort exasperated by the shoveling of snow, there was no pinching, no bulge around my kidneys, no other pain, no lower back pain; absolutely no indication that a tumor was growing on a kidney.
Urology and oncology went right to work. I was prescribed a drug called Cabozantinib that created numerous side effects but shrunk the tumor. I took that pill for 10 months and on Good Friday, 2019, urology staff called and said it was time for surgery.
One of the side effects was intense fatigue and I jokingly told my boss one day “don’t be surprised if you come back from lunch and find me asleep at my desk.” And that actually happened three times during the 10 months I took that drug.
But that was the attitude Dr. Leibovich talked about. People who get cancer deal with it in many different ways. Mine was to try to stay as optimistic as the urology staff, use humor when it was warranted and discuss it openly since it was my own belief that was the best way to deal with the trauma.
Mine is only one example of tens of thousands of scenarios that are created from a cancer diagnosis. They all have one thing in common, warning signs. Although mine was quite subtle, nonetheless, it was a sign that something was wrong with my body.
And, as we age, those signs may become more frequent so I implore you that if you have an unusual pain, sore, cough; whatever it is, see a doctor before it may be too late. Regardless of what has to be done, radiation, chemotherapy, surgery; caught early enough, cancer can and does get stopped.
Since March 12, 2018, I’ve thought a lot about the people in my hometown we’ve lost to cancer, My mother Agnes being one of them. Like myself, she went to Mayo Clinic, but in her case, it was too late. Colon cancer had spread to her lungs and the technology wasn’t available in 1995 to save her. And by the time she was “forced” to see a doctor, it was too late.
