7 months later..... still trudging through the mess Cancer left, inconsiderate jerk.

Fast Forward... to today. I am probably about 4 and 1/2 months out of hospital treatment and 6 months Cancer Free. The Tumor was small, 3.8 cm, and so It would seem to me like I should just move on, forget about all this Cancer stuff. It wasn't as if I had to have extensive Chemotherapy and Radiation treatments, I didn't lose my fertility, and I have a minuscule chance of recurrence. So why can't I just "Move On"? Truthfully, I don't know the answer to this question. I have spoken to many other survivors, I know about the "New Normal". I attended the OMG Summit 2014 this last April, and it was exactly what I needed to cope with my diagnosis and the impact it will have on the rest of my life. I was able to meet so many amazing young adults, All fighting various battles, and a safe place for me to finally talk about "the Cancer". I just usually feel like I make everyone in the room uncomfortable if I bring up "the Cancer" but its always right there in the fore front of my mind. I try to be as grateful as I can be, My Cancer was caught early, I'm one of the "lucky ones" I guess. and don't get me wrong, I do feel lucky, but I feel like if were looking at things from a luck perspective, I would have to say the people who manage to live their entire lives and NOT get Cancer, would be the winners...... Somehow, being 30 and having ALREADY had kidney Cancer just seems crummy.  The Financial aftermath Cancer has left Me and so many other AYA Survivors with is devastating, and probably unfathomable to the other people in my age group. I would have to say my treatment alone, this is without Chemo mind you, cost at least 50,000 when all was said and done, maybe more. Every time I get a scan, or have to see my other doctors, it costs. Then there would be the scarring, internal scarring in and around the Kidney that was worked on will flair up and hurt. And you can forget about Alcohol, 1 beer has me throbbing. Those carefree after work happy hours are no more for this 30 something gal. And the 4 or 5 scars on my abdomen from the numerous surgeries, and the way my waist is now always shaped like I have a rubber band cutting me across the middle, which takes a toll on how I view myself as a woman. That and the weight I gained as a result of being convalescent for close to 4 months doesn't help in that respect either. I am comforted by the #underthereddress movement, A group dedicated to helping women cope with the aftermath of Cancer on their bodies, and StupidCancer.org, A group dedicated to reaching out and helping AYA Cancer patients and survivors to give them the resources and support they need during these trying times.  But I'm still lost at sea here. I'm still feeling the isolation that Cancer brings. Kidney Cancer is rare in Young People. It is generally found In either very young children (wilm's tumor) or in Adults (Mainly men) over 60, but its becoming more prevalent in the AYA community. The More I read about it, the more talk to other RCC survivors online, I keep hearing about how sneaky it can be. How people have been deemed "cancer free" only to have it show up in their lungs or bones. I am still just as terrified of it as I was the day they found it, and I don't even have it anymore. I have to say the scariest thing about this entire experience was having to trust another human being with my life, and that's exactly what I have to do, whenever My doctor tells me I'm OK, that the cancer is gone, I have to trust that he's not missing something. Which is difficult when you have been under doctor's care since childhood, had yearly check ups, blood-tests, surgeries, and even chest x rays, And they never found a thing, but the only way to really see Kidney cancer early is to look at the kidneys, which unless you have kidney stones, they usually don't. So in closing, Friends, if you have your health, Keep it. Don't Smoke, and enjoy the little things you take for granted..... your energy, your peace of mind, that little extra cash you get to spend on yourself at the end of each month, the way you feel like you look great right before a night out with the girls, and NOT having 2 panic attacks over a doctor's appointment. :) If your are in the same boat as me however, don't despair. We have an appreciation of life's moments that others can't understand, because we know how precious and fleeting they can be. We know what we have and measure our riches in moments, not dollars. We have Family, Friends, Fellow Survivors, and the knowledge that WE KICKED CANCER'S ASS, is there anything we can't do?

So I tripped and fell into some Cancer, but I shook that sh$t off....

Last November,  I was your average young adult. I worked 2 jobs to make ends meet, I was unmarried and single, And had just found myself in love with jeff(27) after 4 months in a brand new relationship. It was the week before thanksgiving,  jeff and I were planning for a weeklong camping trip over thanksgiving with his family. I was excited because this would be the first time I met them. So I wake up with this extreme pain in the middle of my abdomen. The only thing I can think of is that its heartburn or something so I do what you would usually do for heartburn, but the pain just gets worse. Finally jeff wakes up. He hears me screaming in pain and he rushes me to the ER. they do an ultrasound, and find a large gallstone stuck in the neck of my gallbladder. That's what was causing the pain. The doctor tells me that I need a cholecystectomy, but there is also something else. they said they found solid mass on my left kidney. The doctor told me that a solid mass is a concern on the kidney and I needed to get an MRI. We went home, I decided to postpone the cholestectomy until after thanksgiving so jeff and I could still go camping. I had a restricted diet, but it was beautiful out and we had so much fun.  I had the cholestectomy December 5th. By then I had gotten the MRI and my GP had called me personally to refer me to a urologist. He sounded concerned,  and as this is the easy going doc I had been seeing since I was 12, that scared me. A lot. He even told me if I didn't get an appointment in the next week, he would call over there and make it happen. That was unnecessary,  but worrisome that he was that concerned. I made an appointment with the first available urologist and was in his office a week after surgery. My mom had taken me to the appointment, I couldn't drive anyway, but there was no keeping her from going. I don't remember much of that appointment, just a lot of sentence fragments, but "95% certian its cancer" was the last thing I heard before I was sucked into the rabbit hole. I no longer heard my doctor's words, or my mother's questions. I could only hear the reverberation of the word "Cancer" in my head. I couldn't take it anymore, sobbing I told him "take the whole thing, I don't want it" and left the office. I walked in a mature 30 year old woman, and walked out feeling 5 years old again, clutching my mothers hand, allowing her to guide me. She took me home, I told jeff the diagnosis,  Renal cell carcinoma,  I need surgery asap. I told him I would understand if this was a lot to deal with and if he wanted to bail, I'd be ok. He wouldn't hear any of it. And by my side he stayed. The next few weeks were a blur. Appointments, scans, Christmas, scared faces. My friends and family's and my own, whenever I looked in the mirror.  In the midst of it I learned a lot about my cancer, I was stage 1, which is highly curable they said, and the tumor was 3.8 cm, which meant I would benefit from a partial nephrectomy, because the rest of the kidney left would still function, reducing the risk of ending up on dialysis later in life. My tumor was positioned in such a way that in order to get it all, they had to cut across the collecting ducts, which has its own set of complications. Surgery was set for January 7th. I of course remember nothing of the surgery but, from what I've been told by the doctor,  it was a difficult case. It took significantly longer than usual, 6 hours total I think, but he was able to save 4/5 of my kidney. I didn't stay in the hospital long, I left the next day with the drainage tube still attached and went home. Not the smartest move on my part but I really hate hospitals. I was in a lot of pain and on a lot of medications.  Two weeks later I started urinating more blood than is usual after surgery. I awoke with extreme pain in my left kidney and rushed to ER, Jeff works nights, so I was alone, I focused on my breathing and drove myself to the nearest ER. I won't get too graphic with the details, more so because I don't want to relive them myself,  but I had a weeklong hospital stay in which I had many invasive tests, scans, procedures to fix a urine leak, blood loss, blood transfusion, catheters, angiogram(having a stranger shave my pubic hair was the most embarrassing moment ever I think, lol)bladder scraping etc. By mid February I was on the mend. I had my Urinary stent removed just after Valentines Day and slowly started trying to join in the "Business Of Living" again. I was still in a lot of pain,  but I wanted my life back and so I pushed through a lot. I started getting back into the swing at work, slowly, in fact I think there were a lot of days I just sat there, but my co workers are all so wonderful. They helped me in every way they could. This is the beginning of the financial eclipse of cancer, but I'll save that for my next entry.