Interviewer:
How did your children react to all of this? They were all adult age when this was happening, correct?
Bob:
Yes. Honestly, I don’t think they really took it seriously. I don’t think they understood the breadth of what was really going on.
Carol:
Because I think they figured, mom can take care of him. [Laughs] And he’s fine. He’s always so happy. He’s fine. “ I appreciate him more. I think he appreciates me and appreciates life more. It’s like we look out for each other more. You don’t take anything for granted anymore.”
Bob:
But the reality is that for the first two or three years even I didn’t know how serious it was. I remember the night we went in for the second tumor surgery, going in and saying, “I didn’t realize this is serious. I mean, oh, gosh, I have a recurrence. I’m considered Stage IV. I’m one of those guys now.”
Carol:
I didn’t get it either.
Bob:
For me, personally, I think the true realization was when I went to the oncologist, because when you’re sitting there in a room with other patients, it’s not just kidney cancer patients. It’s everybody. You’ve got people with shaved heads. You’ve got people getting chemotherapy. They look sick. And you’re realizing, I’m part of this club now.
Interviewer:
If you were to go back to that moment when you first got the diagnosis, what was your emotive state at that moment?
Bob:
When I first received the diagnosis that I had a tumor, it didn’t completely resonate until I actually met with the urologist. Because the doctor said, “You’ve got a tumor. You’ve got to go see a urologist.” The urologist is the one who said, when he saw it, “It’s got to come out. We’re taking the kidney out.” And he was pretty good about telling me, “Plenty of people live with one kidney. It’s OK. Just be careful.” And I was fine with that. The cancer part of it didn’t have really the kind of impact on me that it should have. But it didn’t. It wasn’t one of those life-threatening things, I think. I said, “OK. Well, I just go get some surgery done, and I’ll be back.” I threw it under the table. I really did.
Interviewer:
How about you, Carol?
Carol:
Same as Bob. I thought, “Fine. Yeah, we got lucky.” We walked out of the hospital saying, “Oh, cool, done.”
Bob:
Yeah. I got out of the hospital in four or five days, and the kidney
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Kidney Cancer Association