Just another speedbump in the road to a cure....

thanks to all of my wonderful friends and family for all of your well wishes, support, flowers, bears, balloons, plant baskets, etc. i deeply appreciate everything and every member of team bean saver.

well, as many of you know, dr. cold fish wasnt able to get the kidney out. they got the cantaloupe sized ovary out and it did have cancerous cells that were contained within the ovary itself, but they determined that they originated from the kidney and that my uterus and other ovary were fine, so they left them in. the kidney fought back and my surgeon wasn't able to get it out. lefty's last stand ended up NOT his last stand. basically, lefty had latched on to my colon and intestines like velcro which dr. cold fish did not anticipate. also, he would have had to sever my aorta as well as go chopping away at other organs in order to get it out and he didn't want to risk my life when i still have other treatment options with dr. doom. he was on the phone with dr. doom during and after my surgery to discuss what was going on before he gave up.

while they had me open, they were able to get a bunch of other tissue samples that they had not been able to get before....they sent them to the local pathologist and also to an internationally renowned pathologist at Harvard for a second opinion to officially determine the type of cancer cells. just to recap, the results from my original biopsy last sept. were inconclusive....the cells didn't look like the typical clear cell RCC, but since it looked similar, dr. doom started me on the sutent treatment and it worked. the cancer responded to sutent as if it were clear cell RCC. we now finally have a conclusive answer!! YEAH! i actually have "collecting duct renal cell carcinoma". it is obviously still of renal origin, but it is a type that makes up <1% of all RCC cases. yup, i am one special gal! luckily, the stats for it aren't worse than its cousin...it responds to treatment the same as clear cell and it has also responded to additional treatments such as chemo whereas clear cell RCC does not respond to chemo. here's a link if anyone wants to know more about it.

http://www.uptodate.com/patients/content/topic.do?topicKey=cancer/9134

so, not getting the kidney out at this point ends up not being the end of the world. dr. doom is actually all smiles....he seemed happy that i made it through surgery with flying colors, that the ovary is out and to have some more "evidence" to test and help determine next steps. he was REALLY excited about sending the samples out to the fancy HAAAvARD (can you hear the snooty accent) pathologist. the rarer i become, the happier he gets. can't get much more rare than <1% of all RCC cases, plus im not a man, plus im not over 50, plus i had great response to his treatment....im sure he can just taste that medical writeup coming.

i don't know if dr cold fish felt bad that he didnt get the kidney out or what, but he said that he called in a plastic surgeon to close me up...they closed my incision with a type of super glue...i have no stitches or staples...the skin is literally glued together in order to minimize the scar. pretty cool! there are stitches underneath holding the muscle layer together to heal of course, but the top layer is just glued.

i won't bore you with details of the pain (let's just say that percocet is my BFF) or the horror story from my second day in the hospital(catheter, cussing nurses and not enough pain meds is all i have to say right now)....if anyone wants details about the surgery or has an questions, just shoot me a comment and i will write a post with more detail later. I will say that on the 3rd day in the hospital, dr. cold fish told me that the world was waiting for me to fart....they wouldn't release me or let me eat regular food until i farted. ha. usually this is not an issue for me, but it took me 5 freaking days to fart....needless to say, the whole floor knew when i did. it was like the first time your kid goes potty on the potty. my mom ran outside looking for the nurse screaming "she farted!!! she farted!!!!"