29/08/2024
Justin likely has cancer but let me start from the beginning.
In May, he had what seemed to be a bad case of food poisoning.
Then it happened again in July, but much worse: the severity of the pain and the length of time. A couple days later, he admitted to me that he felt like he was dying, at which point, I immediately sent him to urgent care.
He told them that the pain would start in the upper middle of his belly and then travel down to his lower right side + some nausea & hot flashes. They said it was likely his appendix, but that antibiotics may be enough. They did blood work which showed an elevated white blood cell count. They put him on THREE antibiotics and suggested he get a CT scan.
Our insurance denied the scan, but Justin got it anyway. Thank goodness.
By the time he got in for the scan his appendix looked fine, but they found a large mass (the size of a fist) on one of his kidneys. Mind you, these results went to his inbox days before we heard from a Dr. Why they do that I will never understand. I also find it funny that they refer to normal/healthy organs as “Unremarkable,” but I digress…
We then assumed these “episodes” he experienced were somehow related to the mass. Lots of worry, waiting, several doctors, more waiting, and more tests later, we walked into The Levine Cancer center. That was surreal and incredibly painful. The C word is terrifying.
His Dr, also Justin, is wonderful. At the appt last week, he reassured us that while there is a high likelihood that this is cancer, it doesn’t appear to have spread, and he doesn’t believe that it is aggressive.
My Justin will have a partial nephrectomy to remove the mass and a large part of his kidney (hopefully not all of it, but if they must, at least his other kidney looks clear). They will then do pathology on the mass to see how often he’ll need to come in for scans. His surgery is set for the middle of October.
**Cont’d in the comments**
