Sara

Sara was 52 and knew something wasn’t quite right for a while.  She had a high threshold for pain, so she kept putting things off.  She was feeling some upper abdominal pain and tired all the time.  She went to her primary care physician and was told that it was probably an ulcer.  But when the pain kept getting worse and worse she went to the ER in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  In the ER, they did a scan and found she had a large renal mass.

She wondered, “I am a healthy woman who has never had any health problems. How could this possibly be?”  Fortunately for Sara, Dr. Brian Lane happened to be in the hospital that day.  Little did Sara know at the time that Dr. Lane has published more than 100 research articles, (most of them about kidney cancer) and is recognized as one of the leading authorities in the world on kidney cancer.

Sara states, “It was a God send that Dr. Brian Lane happened to be in the hospital that day. He and his team wrapped their arms around me. I was admitted that day into the hospital and 6 days later was headed for surgery.”

After Sara recovered from surgery, she thought that was the end of her kidney cancer story and life would eventually return to normal.  But it turned out her cancer was already advanced and cancer cells had gotten out of the kidney and into the blood stream.  She was told that there was only a 75% chance she would not be alive in 3 years and a 90% chance she would be dead in 5.

 Sara was devastated, “I was confused and didn’t understand what he was telling me. I thought this would be the last time I would see him.”  Now she was facing terrible odds that she wouldn’t live to see her 55th birthday.

Well that was 5 years ago!  Sara has beaten the odds and is one of those lucky ones with metastatic kidney cancer to live 5 years.  She has had a recurrence in her brain (got brain surgery), currently has some spots in her lungs that are being closely watched. Sara made it to her 55th birthday and had a couple since then and counting.  She said, “I feel great and very blessed to live in Grand Rapids with the amazing health facilities we have available to us.” She wants other kidney cancer patients to know there can be worse kinds of cancer. Renal cancer is often slow growing and, if caught early, relatively easy to treat. You cannot let yourself slip into fear and uncertainty.