So I had this kidney tumor taken out in 2018, and they figured they got it all.
Then they saw "interesting" little lumps on my right ribcage in another scan.
I told them they were silly-- I was play swordfighting (fencing, epee) pretty savagely at the time, and that was the area where you'd get dinged by fancy rebar, ie the blunted swords. Doctors are so silly.
Then in late 2020, some other shit came to light, and they found a few random metastasized kidney cells like, near my jaw. Well OK.
Turns out that the original tumor, in its final days of the Collapse of the Third Reich of Tumors, had sent devoted cells to hide in Argentina (my ribs) and then a few of those were getting active and spreading like all o'er the place.
Googled Stage 4 Kidney Cancer. Google said "Mothafucka you dead." I was surprised but those were Google's actual words.
I just went through the motions doing what the doctors said. Pet Scan actually wasn't as bad as I feared-- instead of racks of pulsating tumors, I had some little carpenter bees drilling here and there.
That's when I got the Voodoo Juice, ie Keytruda infusions every three weeks, and 6 to 10 mg of Inlyta pills every day. Only been in use for a short time. Expensive as hell, quick go marry a woman with good insurance. The Keytruda acts like a spotlight so my own immune system can spot cancer cells who usually glide about all sneaky, and the pills are like little Berserker Dwarf Warriors that charge through my body's passageways killing cancer plus the occasional regular cell. It's fun.
It can have lots of inconvenient side-effects. Not as bad as traditional Chemo, and I luckily haven't gotten every single one at once. Landed on the Shart thread at least once, and in August 2021 my feet swole up so I could barely walk, but it's better at the moment and who cares, those rowdy drugs are murdering cancer.
I have been extremely fortunate in the past year and a half. Good results immediately, the big lumps (almost an inch across) became medium lumps, and the small scattered stuff went poof. Then it made them a wee bit smaller, and for months it stayed stable.
Hey, can't die from cancer if it's not growing.
Then this past June was hell. Had some kind of flu, seemed Covid-y but tests were negative. My ass barely ate, lost 12 pounds. Sodium tanked, did 5 days in the hospital recovering. They figured out that my own immune system had mistakenly taking a bite out of my one adrenal gland, and I was headed towards an "adrenal crisis" where I'd maybe go into a seizure and start flipping around on the floor scaring little kids and stuff. So they got me jacked up on Hydrocortisone tablets, which are cheap and available all over the world.
I read Keith Richards' book "Life" and now I live like Keef, purest drugs possible, taken like shifting gears in a car. Kinda fun and I feel 36 instead of 86 (DL says 61.)
Oh, and the other thing that my immune system tore into? The remaining cancer. The former "big" one is 8mm across, 1/3 of an inch. Today Doc told me that soon we might experiment with dropping the infusions soon because she thinks my ravenous immune system is now wide awake and tearing into that last bit on its own.
Cry havoc and release the immune system of war.
So yeah, this thing could stop working. They could find toenail Aids next week or maybe the Alien Baby busts out my gut. But at my last scan, cancer was getting the shit beat out of it.
So when you get cancer, this ain't 1950s soap opera cancer. Google don't know shit. Real smart kids are cooking up voodoo magic every year to help you and me.
And of course @Nicole44 doesn't have to, but after all the time it took me to type that, it'd be kinda cool if she PMd me a photo or two. For artistic appreciation.