I am now cancer free

[soberups]

Its been a rough month.

I had orthoscopic knee surgery on August 1st, the first day of my vacation.

Found out the very next day that I had kidney cancer. A tumor the size of a golf ball, on my right kidney. A week and a half ago, I had my entire right kidney removed. By the grace of God they got all the cancer out, I am cancer free, should make a full recovery and be back to work in early October.

I'm going to give a little advice. Advice #1: if you dont have supplemental disabililty insurance...GET IT. Even if you have to sacrifice a monthly payment on a toy in order to afford it. I did, and it kept this from being a financial hardship. Advice #2: if your doctor tells you to get something checked...DO IT. They actually caught my kidney cancer doing a scan of my liver that my doctor had ordered. They caught it BEFORE it spread to the rest of my body, which probably saved my life. I will now be doing whatever scans, tests etc that they want me to do in a timely manner and I suggest everyone else do the same!

 

[upschuck]

Glad to hear you are doing better.

 

[Turdferguson]

Its been a rough month.

I had orthoscopic knee surgery on August 1st, the first day of my vacation.

Found out the very next day that I had kidney cancer. A tumor the size of a golf ball, on my right kidney. A week and a half ago, I had my entire right kidney removed. By the grace of God they got all the cancer out, I am cancer free, should make a full recovery and be back to work in early October.

I'm going to give a little advice. Advice #1: if you dont have supplemental disabililty insurance...GET IT. Even if you have to sacrifice a monthly payment on a toy in order to afford it. I did, and it kept this from being a financial hardship. Advice #2: if your doctor tells you to get something checked...DO IT. They actually caught my kidney cancer doing a scan of my liver that my doctor had ordered. They caught it BEFORE it spread to the rest of my body, which probably saved my life. I will now be doing whatever scans, tests etc that they want me to do in a timely manner and I suggest everyone else do the same!

Hope all goes well with you

 

[By The Book]

@soberups, I'm glad everything is on the right track. I'm so glad you are cancer free and followed thru with your doctors orders. Thanks for the great advice. I recently had a blood draw done and found out that a level was out of range. This was a free blood draw thru the local. I'm now making the time for all of the doctors appointments.

 

[cosmo1]

Good for you, Sober. Catching it early is the key.

My brother had his bladder removed last year due to cancer, and now is as healthy and happy as he ever was.





(BTW, probably caused by over exposure to dog biscuits. )

 

[soberups]

I need to give credit where credit is due here as far as my knee surgery. It was an on-the-job injury, and UPS didnt jerk me around. I told management that I wanted to have the surgery done ASAP so that I could recover during my vacation and be healthy for peak. They agreed, and I got the surgery done. Dealing with cancer and kidney removal is tough enough, at least I had the peace of mind of knowing that my knee was fixed and I wouldnt be having to dealing with workmens comp issues or multiple recoveries at the same time. By the time I am healed from the kidney surgery the knee will have been 100% for several weeks.

 

[soberups]

@soberups, I'm glad everything is on the right track. I'm so glad you are cancer free and followed thru with your doctors orders. Thanks for the great advice. I recently had a blood draw done and found out that a level was out of range. This was a free blood draw thru the local. I'm now making the time for all of the doctors appointments.

A liver enzyme reading that was slightly out of range was the reason my doctor ordered an ultra sound on my liver. The liver was fine, but the ultra sound revealed a mass on my kidney, which they confirmed with a CT scan. I had no symptoms otherwise. Obeying the doctor is why they caught my cancer in time! Good for you for getting tested!

 

[Billy Ray]

Thanks for sharing....


Sounds like you were blessed in more ways than one.
Best wishes for a continued and successful recovery.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Sober, I am so glad to hear that they caught it early and removed it completely.

You mentioned supplemental health/disability insurance. A former co-worker had this and with cancer coverage was paying just over $200/month. To be fair, there was a history in his family, so it made sense for him, but I also (used) to have Combined and did not pull the trigger on the cancer coverage as I didn't feel that the extra $100/month was worth spending for an illness I had a high probability of never contracting.

I also want to commend you for working with your management team on the scheduling of your surgery and the pride that you have in your job that you wanted to make sure that you would be taking care of your customers at Peak.

 

[joeboodog]

Good to hear you're on the mend @soberups. It is truly a miracle they caught it when they did. You sound like me when I got my first knee replaced. My goal was to be back for peak. Unfortunately, it turned out to be Peak 2013 which we know turned out to be the peak from hell but that was my goal. I'll pray for your quick recovery because your four legged friends will miss you.

 

[Cactus]

Glad to hear you're on the road to good health.

 

[iowa boy]

Good luck Sober, glad you caught everything early.

 

[rod]

I hate cancer. So glad to hear you beat it. Its been said-- EVERYONE has a cancer story

 

[bleedinbrown58]

Glad to hear you are doing well, Sober. Best of luck for a fast recovery and continued good health.

 

[Wally]

Excellent news! You scheduled for a PET scan?

 

[soberups]

Excellent news! You scheduled for a PET scan?

What is that? I took a CT scan, never heard of a PET scan.

 

[moreluck]

A pet/ct scan is one where they inject you with radioactive crap, you rest for an hour and then you go through the machine and any cancer in your body, glows.
You have to eat a certain way 24 hours before.......no sugar no carbs.
This explanation is a layman's explanation by someone who is still glowing from a number of them. The good part is you don't have to drink any concoction beforehand.

 

[cosmo1]

What is that? I took a CT scan, never heard of a PET scan.

Kind of like a CAT scan, but with an injection of a radioactive isotope.

Cancer cells show up bright orange.

 

[cheryl]

A pet/ct scan is one where they inject you with radioactive crap, you rest for an hour and then you go through the machine and any cancer in your body, glows.
You have to eat a certain way 24 hours before.......no sugar no carbs.
This explanation is a layman's explanation by someone who is still glowing from a number of them. The good part is you don't have to drink any concoction beforehand.

I was diagnosed with endometrial cancer in December 2015. Had surgery on 12/23/15. Turned out to be Stage 1 Grade 2. Had a pet/ct scan in January. I was internally freaked out while going through the scan in that confining noisy metal tube, but I pretended to be super cool with it. Pretending to be confident worked well for me. In my experience tolerating being confined in that little metal scanning tube was worse than the surgery I slept through. Thankfully the results of my scan were clear of any other cancers.

Congrats @soberups and @moreluck

Cancer is a really scary thing to go through.

 

[Indecisi0n]

You couldn't get them to write you out until after peak