hannah and caroline and my sick one kidney


well, it's been a heavy month, yeah? at the beginning of july, i was on antibiotics for what my primary care physician coined a "really bad infection". two days after beginning the antibiotic, the only symptom that has presented itself throughout this entire endeavor began to clear up...only to come back a few days later.

and then the trip to see a urologist, dr. wade. i was with him for less than an hour, but the news he shared with me would change my outlook on life, if not my actual life, forever. a mass, now confirmed to be malignant, was found growing inside my right kidney.

whoa.

three weeks later, i find my way to the hospital to have the kidney removed. a day later, i receive the best news possible, that the tumor is completely contained and isolated in the kidney, the cancerous cells having not even moved into the margins of the affected organ. the doctor tells us to "celebrate" the good news. we take a deep breath. we move on to recovering from the surgery, itself.

the last week has been a trying one. i have never experienced consistent pain like i have over the last seven days. i went without pain medication for the first time last night. my staples have been removed. i am still a week away from driving, probably over two from returning full time to work. i am not very good at just sitting around. my mind goes to too many dark places.

i am ready to get out of the house again. ready to spend some time with friends again. ready to play softball again (even though that's several weeks off). that being said, this week has been a unique one at home. sarah and i don't have a whole lot of time to ourselves anymore. and even though she's been playing the role of nurse, it's been good to have the time.

it's kind of sad that this weekend will mark the beginning of a return to our new normal. i won't have my first follow-up scan for three months. after recovering from surgery, it will be back to business as usual for a while. by time for my next panic attack, hannah will have started kindergarten. wow. my big girl. caroline, hopefully, will be just a little less "terrible" as she turns two. i'll eventually get back on the field. we'll be getting ready for advent and a trip to georgia for some turkey and dressing. kinda weird. life marches on. i guess it's time to get back on the train and stop feeling sorry for myself.

i hope things will be less heavy here. HACAM hasn't been a whole lot of fun over the last month. and i hate that. this is one of my truly enjoyable escapes, and i want to get back to talking some about the braves that are trying to maintain my interest and the beginning of the college football season being close enough to taste at this point.

let's face it, though. my life and this blog has now seen it's "game-changer". here's hoping that i can incorporate my and our new normal into what used to be a lot of fun around here before the kidney thing went down. there are too many good and relevant things going on in my life that will affect my girls' lives not to make note of them, right?

no more whammies.

hannah and caroline and my sick kidney
(part three)


short and sweet this time around. my day-before-surgery "preparation" will call me back to the bathroom soon.

i am feeling ok about things this afternoon, and i thought it might be worth my time to document that. i worry. that's what i do. i can't claim that all of the fears that have ravaged my imagination and led to night after night of bad sleep are no longer there.

but fear is such a silly thing anyway, isn't it? the way that it manifests itself to me is probably different than you. and that's natural, of course. more than anything else in the last three weeks, i've been reminded at how immature my faith still is. how, in spite of immersing myself in the bible and church and god for the last ten-plus years, i could not have felt and feel more inadequate or unqualified at the thought of having served as a spokesman for god for the last however many years. people should listen to me, why? i probably know more bible trivia than most of you. fantastic. that hasn't helped me at all the last three weeks.

the only thing that has helped has been grasping, with new understanding and enlightenment, that i am not in control. but that there are many, many people (probably most that i've never even met) praying for me. for my health. for my peace of mind. for a calmness. for my family. for my future. all on behalf of a god that i know loves me very much. what a gift. what a gift that i will never be able to pay back. pretty overwhelming.

my surgery will be at 7:00 tomorrow morning. i know you will be there with me.

talk to you soon.

good-bye, right kidney. we had a good run. i am sorry you decided you'd be better off serving as fertile ground for some silly mass/tumor/whatever it ends up being. where did that get you? homeless, that's where. homeless and alone.

i am glad i am not alone.

hannah and caroline and my sick kidney
(part two)
((to the beach))


after the doctor broke the news to me a couple weeks ago tomorrow, we moved to scheduling what would and will be the inevitable. the surgery. he asked me if i had any "big plans" over the next couple of weeks that he would need to take under advisement when finding a good time to remove the kidney with the big mass in it. the only thing i had going on was our family long-weekend to the beach, i told him. he talked to his assistant and came back with the date of july 23rd. i told him that i'd be more than happy to postpone or cancel, altogether, the trip if that enhanced my chances of a full recovery. he appreciated the notion, but told me i would be fine to go and it would probably be good for me and my family to have the trip to take my mind off the procedure and recovery to come.

leaving that thursday, i wasn't sure what i should think about having to wait three weeks to have the surgery. was he just allowing me the vacation because he knew (and i worried) that it would probably be the last vacation i would ever get to take??? thankfully, i've been told otherwise and i've let (most of) that irrational fear go.

a lot has changed inside my head over the last two weeks. i've gone from being a complete and total emotional wreck to almost coming to terms with the idea that i am going to be fine. "fine" will be different than how i might have defined it this time two weeks ago. back then, "fine" definitely would have included having two kidneys. since then, though, i've heard story after story about people living long and healthy lives with one after having the other removed. i've heard stories about people being born with one kidney. and i try and remind myself many times every day that doctors would not allow people to donate kidneys if you couldn't get well enough along without one.

no, missing a kidney will be different than missing my appendix or tonsils. but if my grandmother can do this, i can freaking do this, right? i told that grandmother and my aunt today, when they stopped in the store to say "hey", that 99 percent of my last few days i feel very good about my future and my new "fine". yet, there is still that 1 percent that sneaks in and scares me when i least expect it. i guess that may always be a part of my new "fine". or maybe, some months or years down the road, that may go away too. i hope so. i pray so.

and so, tomorrow we go to the beach, the first time sarah and i have traveled anywhere since our honeymoon for several consecutive days that wasn't with a group from the church or with other family. not that all of those trips weren't incredibly special in their own right, but i think the timing of this trip and the way in which it will be unique will be good for all of us. i really do.

i don't know if i'll promise another update before the surgery. i am sure when i am home and have way too much time on my hands while mending, i'll make up here for all the lost time. as cool as documenting each day leading up to the big event may have seemed last week, not thinking about it quite so much has been cooler.

maybe if my anxiety isn't registering too high next wednesday (while i am at home "preparing" for the surgery), i'll drop a quick note in to wish myself and my girls and my blog well. if not, though, i beg of you for continued good thoughts and good prayers if you have the time. and i thank you for any moment that you have spent with your mind towards my and my family's situation the last couple of weeks. i've told several people over the last few days that i truly believe much of my current peace of mind has arrived via the power of prayer and the miraculous ways that god allows for us to speak to him and one another without ever saying anything out loud.

i am completely floored and flattered that you would share a moment of your time with and for me. thank you.

time to go get a sunburn.

hannah and caroline and my sick kidney
(part one)


nine days away from the blog just may be a record for me. i am not interested enough to do the research to find out or not, so we'll just agree that it's been a while.

i don't have a ton to say today other than i felt like i wanted to, at least, open this topic up here in an effort towards wrapping my head around the idea of documenting the next couple weeks leading up to my surgery and then during the recovery portion of the program.

(to those that this post might serve as an announcement, i was diagnosed with a mass in my right kidney last thursday that will require the kidney's removal on july 23rd. if it catches you off guard, i do apologize and only ask for your prayers and positive thoughts for myself and my family over the next few weeks as we dig in and take this unexpected news and realize it now as our new normal. the word "normal" has never felt so weird and foreign to me as it has the last few days.)

there have been moments (and i know there will continue to be) over the last few days, that this discovery and "what it all means" to my life moving forward has completely taken me over. the panic attacks that i've been able to rationalize away for the last however many years are not pushed back so easily anymore. having tangible evidence presented to you that says "something is not right here" is just the thing that i've always worried about. i suppose my approach has been something along the lines of "if i take my umbrella in with me, it won't rain." that being, if i thought negatively enough about what could go wrong, maybe all those negative thoughts and mental torment would be a fair substitute for something actual. note to self: that didn't work.

i've been told that the mass/tumor being there is just a bad break relative to my age. i've been told that i am lucky that if something like this were to show up in my body, at least it happened in a place where i have a capable replacement waiting to carry the full load. i have been told by my doctor that i will be considered for the rest of my life in the same way any kidney donor would. i'll be monitored, sure, but i'll drink the same things, eat the same things, and do the same things i am already used to doing. in my rational moments, i can accept this train of thought. there is a part of me that thinks i could even embrace it at some point. i have no doubt it my mind that had i two healthy kidneys at my disposal and one of my family or friends needed an extra, i would be the first in line to step up and offer one for the greater good. no problem. today, i hope and pray for this best case scenario.

i have many more irrational fears that i won't go into detail with today. maybe later. maybe not. we'll just see. most of them center around if i was so unlucky to have this mass form in me at such a young age, do all the other more favorable percentages actually apply to me anymore? i am sure they do. i hope they do. that's just what i fear. i hope that's ok. and i want, more than anything, for someone to prove my fears silly sooner rather than later.

this journey will have it's ups and downs, just like any journey in life. i know that. i hope that soon i can provide testimony to those whose own peace of mind might need it that something quite scary can be turned into something quite positive.

i don't know if i've ever believed "everything happens for a reason", but i do believe in god, his son as my savior, the power to heal and the power to grow wise through experience, good and bad.

this is bad. but not so bad that it can't be overcome. i am going to overcome it and i'll be better for it. please help me see this through.

i love you, my wife. i love you, my beautiful girls. i love you, my friends that are already caring and praying for me.

this is not the end. this is just a new chapter.