Catch-22

Transitional cell carcinoma of the renal pelvis

I'm doing as well as can be expected. The pathology report indicated that the cancer was just in the kidney. It was a "high grade" cancer, meaning that it was aggressive, and it had grown throughout the kidney, but there was no evidence that it had grown beyond the kidney.

I got the drainage tube and catheter out Monday, June 2. I'm very happy about that. My stomach muscles are getting better, but getting up from bed is still no fun.

At this point the most uncomfortable parts are the incision sites themselves. A couple of them are situated right where the band of my pants falls. I've been wearing a pair of giant underwear and a pair of large, drawstring pajama bottoms that I can pull up above my stomach. I look very handsome - NOT!

Given that I wear my weird pants or shorts above my tummy, it has been getting a little easier to walk around. I took four evening walks right after coming home from the hospital, before I got completely discouraged with the catheter. Each of the last three mornings, now that I have the tubes out, I've walked more than a mile around the neighborhood, so I must be doing pretty well.

The surgeon wants me on a very low fat diet. During surgery, he decided to cut some of the fat tissue next to the aorta rather than cut closer to the kidney. That apparently included some of the system for distributing lipids. Starting the morning after surgery, for six meals, I was on a normal diet in the hospital - if you can call hospital food "normal."



Then a bunch of lipids came out of my drainage tube, so it was good-bye regular food. I was back on a liquid diet for the next six days. (Regarding my liquid diet, Steve left this link in a comment to my last post; check it out.)

Now I'm eating brown rice, leafy vegetables, and fat-free cooked veggies and staying well below 10 grams of fat a day. That will have be it for the next 2 weeks or so, but it's a pleasure compared to a liquid diet.

My wife probably has a different opinion as to how pleased I am, however.

If I understood the surgeon correctly, the lipid distribution system he cut was part of the lymphatic system. The portion he cut out seems to have rebuilt itself. That was the purpose of the liquid diet and now, keeping my fat intake low. The pathology report didn't mention any abnormalities with the fat cells he cut, so I have to believe that the lymph nodes were fine

I see an oncologist this coming Monday to discuss chemotherapy. The "catch-22" is that the drugs used in chemo are very tough on a kidney, which is a real problem with just one left - so we'll see.