Excerpts from my book, One Kidney: Dealing with Kidney Cancer

This is a guest post by Jeff Kallis, who was diagnosed with stage 3 clear cell renal cell carcinoma in 2023. Jeff has since written a book about his experience, One Kidney: Dealing with Kidney Cancer. Jeff lives in Rochester, Minnesota. (Header photo: Cindy and Jeff Kallis. Wedding photography by Joshua Becker.)

The first sign of trouble was on November 24, 2022. I experienced lower left flank pain that I attributed to diverticulosis (pain in the small intestines). The discomfort lasted about three hours and then nothing out of the ordinary for the next few days. A little ache now and then, but nothing really painful. I didn’t tell my wife, Cindy, because I thought nothing of it. For all I knew it was just gas and it would pass.

That was until January 17th, a little less than two months since I had the first annoying ache in my lower left flank. I saw red. Blood in my urine. I thought this too would pass, but three days later, January 20th, and I was still passing it. More. Darker. I had to fess up to Cindy that I was whizzing blood for the last four days.

After having a CT of the abdomen and pelvis to locate the kidney stone(s) and rule out anything sinister, I was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma – clear cell. I was at a loss for words. Dr. Greenlund said that he wanted to rule out “anything more sinister causing blood in the urine”. I didn’t have any symptoms other than the lower left flank pain and that was only on-and-off. Over the course of two days that I waited to have my CT scan, I thought about the possibility of finding cancer as the cause of blood in my urine instead of kidney stones. When I went down that rabbit hole, I kept telling myself it was just kidney stones, and I was getting worked up for no reason. I felt great except for the lower flank pain. I tried not to dwell on it. Two days seemed like a lifetime. I can’t imagine waiting longer than that to have a CT scan to help pinpoint the cause of the flank pain and bleeding. I say that knowing that some patients wait weeks or more at other medical practices for follow up imaging. Final diagnosis from Anatomic Pathology: Stage 3, Grade 3.

It’s a roller coaster ride that you want to get off, but you’re strapped into your seat until the ride stops. Except it never does. No matter what you are doing, you think about your cancer. It was common to hear, “You’ve got a lot on your mind.” I only have one thing on my mind. You can take a walk to think about something else, but you trip over cancer thoughts along the way. You can watch your favorite show (Frasier reruns that never get old) only to have a commercial about cancer interrupt the side-splitting comments. It’s almost worse than cancer itself.

Educating yourself, rather than depending on medical specialists to take care of you, is the best thing you can do to manage your health.  Medical professionals cannot care more about your health than you do.  They cannot put all your burdens on their shoulders or be there every minute to walk you through it. You and a higher power need to do that, with the support of family and friends.  There are excellent resources on the internet to help sort through the technical jargon, present the information in layman’s terms (for the most part), provide data and studies with evidence-based medicine, help to understand cancer diagnosis and test results, survival rates, opinions, and data on treatment options.  You really need to sift through the information you receive on the web, but I have to say that as a person who needs logic and data to wrap my head around what I needed to tackle, the information available on the internet was very helpful in not just understanding but comforting in knowing that the care and approach I was taking was the right one. Organizing my health information in a way that I could appreciate and understand was one of the most important steps I took.

Writing about my experience was therapeutic for me. I hope it also helps others who are going through kidney cancer. This is my story: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNKNPVW9.