Tim Kehrwecker
My name is Tim Kehrwecker and I… am a 4 year Kidney cancer survivor, and this… is My Story.
I am from Holland, Michigan. I grew up in a middle class household with my mom, dad, 2 brothers and 3 sisters. I’m the 5th of 6 kids. I was born and raised Catholic. As a high school kid, I was 5’7” and weighed 145 pounds. I played football, baseball and pick-up basketball all the time. When I was younger, I was a machine when it came to athletics. I wasn’t a super athlete, but I never got tired, and could play almost any sport. In my early 20’s, I played softball 3 nights a week during the summer and bowled 2 or 3 nights a week during the winter. I golf whenever I get the chance. In my early to mid 30’s, I played in roller hockey leagues too!
I met my wife Nicole in November 1989, I was 22 at the time, but I we didn’t get married until June 1994. In my early 20’s and up until about age 25, I was only about 175 pounds. I was a roofer working with my Dad, climbing ladders with 50 to 100 pounds of stuff on my shoulders all day long. My legs and butt were like rocks. I was solid. Now… I am 43 years old and I’m still 5’7”, but I weight about 220 lbs, and I may be a little soft around the middle, and not as tough. I have always said, working for the City made me “lazy.” Ssshhhhhh… Don’t tell…
I have been married to my wife Nicole for 16 years, we have two great kids. I now live in Grandville, Michigan. Grandville is just outside the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Grand Rapids is turning into one of the leading medical cities in the USA.
I work as a Power Plant Operator, and have been with the company since October 20, 1993, almost 17 years now. I work as a night shift Power Plant Operator. I’ve been working here since October 20, 1993. I work a 7 nights on, 7 nights off schedule. I work three 8 hour nights to start my week and then four 12 hour nights to end my work week. I’ve been doing this schedule for about 13 years now. My wife works in the mortgage industry, and for a while, the bucks were coming in left and right. Between the two of us we had a great income. In the span of couple years, 2003 and 2004, we went on a 5 night cruise and two 7 night Caribbean cruises, we also spent a short week at Disney in Florida with our kids and my Mother-in-Law, for watching our kids when we went on the 3 cruises. Life was great. Then we decided to move. We went from a $135,000 house to a $280,000 house. You know what they say… bigger house… bigger house payments. Things were good.
In May 2006, I was lucky enough to go to Florida for a week by myself to be in one of my best friend Brian’s weddings. I was Brian’s best man. I met a lot of new people and remain in contact with some of them. Two of them that I met were Sarah, the maid of honor, who then was a 3 years breast cancer survivor and Scott, another Groomsman, who was closing in on about 3 to 4 years as a melanoma survivor. Little did I know then, but I would rely on Scott’s knowledge to deal with my own cancer in the coming months. I still say there was a reason I met these two people.
Early June, 2006: I thought to myself, "we have a great dental insurance at work. Why am I not taking advantage of this…???" I decided to start going to the dentist again. I had my first exam with the same dentist the rest of my family sees. My wife and kids go there, why don’t I…??? After all, it’s right by our house, you can almost see the place from our driveway. During the exam, the dentist and a hygienist looked at my gums and the pockets surrounding each tooth. They measured how deep they are and almost every one of them bled during the exam. ““You have periodontal disease, we’re going to give you this solution to drink twice a day. Then you'll need to come back in 3 months for a check-up to monitor your mouth for improvement.” The stuff tastes nasty… but I did it.
And then My Life changed…
June 28th, 2006: I woke up from my usual daily sleep after working my night shift. The first thing I always do is walk to the restroom, usually with my eyes still mostly shut, and sit down to go to the bathroom. When I was done, I stood up, turned around to flush, and was shocked by what I saw. The water was as red… very red… as if you had poured a bottle of red wine into the toilet. Was this from me…??? I called my wife, asked a few questions, and realized that had come from me. What in the world would have caused that…??? I called the Med Center, to “Ask a Nurse” about it. They suggested I come in for an examination. I told them I couldn’t do it for a few hours as I had to get my kids from school, and then had to wait until my wife got home from work and then could go down to the Med Center. While waiting for Nicole to get home, one of my best friends, Dan called me. I told him what happened earlier, he said he was going to come by to see if I was alright. While Dan was over, I had to go to the bathroom again. This time I was standing. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, it was happening again. To see this red stream coming out was bizarre. I told Dan “I’m doing it again.” He wanted to see. I said “really… are you sure…???” When I was done, I cracked the door so he could peek in, and he couldn’t believe it either. “That ain’t right,” he said. I quickly flushed so the kids wouldn’t see it.
When Nicole got home, I left for the Med Center. It wasn’t long before I was in an exam room. “We need a urine sample to see if you have blood in your urine.” I took the cup and off I went to the restroom across the hall. A clot of blood shot into the cup as I urinated. It looked like a red worm of sorts. Totally bizarre. What was going on here…??? I gave them the cup and waited. “We tested your sample and you don’t have any blood in your urine.” “How is this possible when I shot a clump of it into the cup…???” The female doctor said “well, let’s take a look…drop your shorts”. After looking things over, “Everything looks normal.” HHHmmmmm… She said “Sometimes it’s nothing. We don’t have any answers as to why you urinated blood, but I want you to go see a urologist to make sure you don’t have any tumors in your bladder that decided to bleed.” “What did you just say…???” I asked… “You heard me,” she said. “OK, I guess I’ll call around and see if I can get in somewhere.”
I went to work that night not knowing what to expect. Every time I used the restroom, I wondered what was going to come out… Nothing… I finished my 8 hour night shift and went home. I slept all day, woke up at 2:30pm, as usual, off to the bathroom, sat down, got up… nothing. No blood.
Resume daily routine. Hmmm… there’s a message on the answering machine. This is the Med Center and we have scheduled you for an Urologist appointment with Dr Kevin Kronner at Western Michigan Urological Associates, in Holland, Michigan on July 3rd. Cool, I didn’t even have to do anything, except show up. This was great because I didn’t know where to begin to look for a place to go.
June 29th, I went to work. Time to use the restroom… Oh My… It was happening again. This red stream, as red as wine… not just a little… but the whole time I was going. And it stopped… I never urinated blood again. I could have blown it off.
July 3rd, I better go to that appointment just to be safe. What could it hurt, right…??? “We need a urine sample.” I go and pee in a cup again… Nothing… “There isn’t any blood in your urine.” At this time, Dr Kronner comes into the exam room. He begins to explain how things work and what he is looking for using the chart on the wall to show me. He was thorough. “Why don’t you go ahead and drop ‘em so I can take a look.” He examines me, all the while asking questions. No pains, no other symptoms, probably not a kidney stone… might be nothing… a fluke… “Well, everything looks normal, I want you to have a CT scan of your abdomen and pelvis to rule out anything big.” I said, “what do you mean by that…???” “I want to make sure you don’t have any tumors or anything. When the results come back, we’ll then go from there.” “OK.” I said. “They’ll set you up with a CT scan appointment at the front desk.”
“We have you scheduled for a CT scan on July 7th. By the way, drink this the night before, and one in the morning, an hour before your scans, and no eating in between.” I haven’t urinated blood for over a week now. Maybe it was a fluke…??? Maybe it was from that crap I was cleaning my mouth out with twice a day from the dentist, maybe I swallowed some of it… Why go…??? I could have blown it off… Yuck… that stuff tasted horrible. Barium sulfate suspension smoothie… sounds delicious… What could it hurt to go… July 7th, I go to my CT scan, in the back of my head… I knew something was wrong, but I had no clue what was coming. I laid down for my CT scan… “OK, we’re going to inject this contrast now and you are going to get a warm feeling down there.” Whoa, did I just pee my pants…??? The machine was "whirring" as the scans took place. And then I was done. That was easy. Hmmm… Maybe nothing is wrong. “Your Doctor will call you with the results.”
July 13th. During the next week, I was invited to play in a Member-Guest Golf Tournament with my friend Dan. What a fun 3 day event, golf, food, friends and fun. I had been looking forward to this since he asked me to be his partner months earlier. We played our round the first day, it was a blast. We had a great dinner.
July 14th, Dan and I were warming up for round 2 of the 3 day tournament. We were about 20 minutes before our tee time. My cell phone rang… “Tim, this is Dr Kronner, unfortunately we found a large mass inside your left kidney… and by the looks of it, 90% of the time it’s cancerous…” I was silent… “Are you there…???” “Yes… I’m still here… “What do you mean by a large mass…??? “ “Well, it measures about 12cm” “If that’s a large mass... what’s a small mass…???” “A small mass is about 2 to 3cm”… The next few minutes were a blank… Dan looked at me, my usual happy go lucky grin was gone… He kept looking at me… I was on the phone just listening, feeling dead inside… The Doc was talking but I wasn’t hearing much… “The nurse will be calling you back to talk to you about a consult on the 19th at our office.” I hung up… “Who was that?” Dan asked. I said, “that was the call that I’ve been waiting for, from the Urologist.” I just looked at him for a while… He knew right then, something was wrong, really wrong… “I have a large mass growing in my left kidney” I told him… “It’s a tumor… I have cancer… well, it’s cancerous 90% of the time, the Doctor said.” Dan was speechless… So was I…
“I better call Nicole…” I called my wife, and asked her where she was. She was on her way to lunch with a co-worker and good friend Julie. “Are you sitting down…???” “Yes, Julie’s driving” she said. “The doctor just called… I have a large mass growing in my left kidney and it’s most likely cancer.” The phone was silent… “They’re going to be calling me back for a pre-surgery consult, to go over the scans, I need to be there on the 19th…” I said. She didn’t say much. “I’ll tell you more about it later,” I told her I loved her, I hung up and just stood there for a while. What just happened…???
Dan was standing there, beside the golf cart… All of the sudden I could feel “it”, I could feel that this tumor was there… 20 minutes earlier, nothing was wrong, and NOW I can feel a tumor inside me…??? “Hey, If you don’t want to play today, I’ll understand,” Dan said. I looked at him and said, “What am I going to do… go home any cry about it…??? I paid $250.00 for this, we’re playing.” We rode to our first tee box and introduced ourselves to our playing partners… and one mumbles something about his minor aches and pains, and Dan looks at me, and I’m like “Dude… that’s too bad, but I was just told less than 20 minutes ago that I have a large mass, a tumor growing inside my kidney… I just found out I have cancer.” They didn’t know what to say… 1st tee box, my phone rings… “This is the nurse and we have you scheduled for surgery on July 21 and a pre-surgery meeting with the Anesthesiologist on the 18th,” the voice said. “What about my consult for the 19th…???” “You are still scheduled for that.”
“How could this be happening to me…???” “How much time do I have left…???,” I thought.
We golfed. Every bump we rode over, I could feel “it.” I didn’t want “it” to break. “Easy on the bumps Dan.” I hit the cover off the ball that day, I was pissed. My phone rang a few times during the round. Every time it was the nurse with more information. “Sorry about being on the phone guys” I told them… “We understand,” they said. At the end of the round the guys we played with said, “We don’t know how you did it today. We would have gone home. Good luck, we hope it turns out well for you.”
I went home after the post round dinner, and my son asked if I had a good day, I began to cry and told him “I’ve had better days Nick” and went into my bedroom to compose myeslf. Nicole followed. She said “you can’t do that in front of the kids.” I was angry, sad, confused… I looked at her and wondered how she couldn’t be showing any emotions. We just kind of hung out for the rest of the evening.
The next morning, Dan called to ask how I was. I asked when had to be back at the course…??? He was surprised that I’d ask. I’ll be there. We had some lunch, played our 3rd round of the Member-Guest, had a few drinks after, and I went home to get cleaned up and take Nicole back to the club for the Member-Guest Dinner and dancing. It was kind of bitter sweet. While we were supposed to be having fun, news was spreading of my phone call, I felt like people starting looking at me as if they’d never see me again. I have cancer, was I going to die…??? We didn’t stay long… As we left, I got a bunch of hugs… It felt like I was getting “goodbye hugs” from people… It was like being in my own funeral line…
My kids were 10 and 4 1/2 at the time… “Would they remember me after I was gone…???” My daughter was only 4… she won’t even remember who I am… What am I thinking, I’m not dead yet. I started living fast. I had to do everything NOW… Over the next few days I spent a lot of time thinking, crying, researching and praying… My dad had passed in August 2001. I prayed about how much I missed him, but I wasn’t ready to see him again… not yet. One night in the hallway that leads to my kid’s bedrooms, I was standing, watching them sleep. Something was answered… I’m not sure why, but all of a sudden a sense of calm came over me and I felt like I’d be doing this for a long time… seeing them grow up. Thank you God for guiding me through this and bringing me comfort in the middle of my storm. YOU are greater than my inflictions. Give my doctors the skill to get me through this.
Tuesday, July 18th: Holland Hospital pre-surgery meeting with the Anesthesiologist. My sister Lisa met me there, she works there too. He asked a bunch of questions. I answered them. After a while, he was explaining how he’d worked at quite a few big hospitals and that the 2 doctors that were going to be doing my surgery were the best he’s seen. They were Dr Kevin Kronner and Dr Brad Willoughby. It comforted me. I was ready.
Wednesday, July 19th, I went to Western Michigan Urologist Assoc. to meet Dr Kronner to go over the CT scan results. Nicole, my Mom and my oldest brother Terry came along. They all sat in on the meeting. Dr Kronner showed us the CT images. There it was. We saw “it” for the first time… “It” lit up on the screen, “it” glowed. “Here it is… and here’s what it should look like,” as he showed the right kidney. Everyone had questions… I don’t remember most of them. “If you choose not to have this removed, this will lead to your demise…It’s up to you.” I remember Dr Kronner saying this as he looked right into my eyes. I was staring right back at him. After a while I asked the others to leave the room, I had questions I wanted to ask by myself. Kronner didn’t smile once… “How much time do I have left…??? Do I need to get my affairs in order… ???” “You’re going to be around for a long time yet,” he said. “It’s gotta come out Doc. I got a lot more shit I want to do in life. I’m not done yet.” “I’ll see you on Friday then.” As we left the consult room, I stopped and turned to him and asked, “What’s the chances that, since you’ll have me open anyway, that you could do a little liposuction while you’re in there…???” He finally cracked a smile and said, “See you Friday.” “You’ll need to go get this stuff and follow the directions to prep yourself for surgery… It’s called Fleet phosphate… It’ll clean you out. And no eating that night.” And we left.
July 20th… Hhmmm… fleet phosphate… can’t be all that bad. Mix is with apple juice, and chase it with a big glass of water… UH OH… where’s the toilet…??? I have to do this how many times…??? I stayed right in my bathroom for 6 hours… OMG… I swear that water was cold when I drank it… How’d it get so hot coming out…??? I’m hungry…
Friday, July 21st, Holland Hospital, It’s coming out… I was in my gown, laying on the bed and the Nurse was shaving my left side and asking all the questions to make sure the correct one was coming out… My wife was there and my mom, my brothers and sisters all took turns coming in to see me before surgery. I was my normal joking self… “Are you scared…???” they all asked. “Nope… All I gotta do is lay here, I’ve got the easy part.” The Anesthesiologist came in, “time for your epidural”… Soon after, everything went dark…
I vaguely remember waking up a little, I hurt like hell. The epidural moved and it wasn’t working. “We need to put another one in, can you sit up and lean over…??? Don’t move.” Damn… It HURT… I was just cut open and now I gotta lean forward so they can put another one in my back… yeah right… I did it… I had to.
I was in recovery for a long time… my family started to worry that something went wrong. They got the news that the epidural wasn’t working and that another was put in and it will be a while yet. I was finally in my room. It was big. My nephew’s wife Emily is a nurse and she was working the floor that I going to be recovering on, so she scheduled my room. Little did I know at the time… but it was a hospice room. Was there something they weren’t telling me…??? It’s a big room and she thought it would be nice. I did have a lot of visitors, so it was nice to have the big room.
Hmmm... this isn’t so bad… I get to lay around for a few days and relax. I had a big bandage over my cut. I hadn’t seen it yet. “Time to change the dressing and to take a look” Holy crap, that’s a big cut… from my angle it looked like I was cut nearly in half. He didn’t do any lipo either… what the hell…??? The next day, “Tim, we want you to get out of bed and sit for a while.” “What…???” “No really.” I did it… I sat too long, and it hurt, especially when I lay back down and stretched my stomach. “Tim, we want you to get out of bed and walk so you don’t get pneumonia”… I walked. By the 3rd & 4th days I walked a lot, lap after lap around the floor. During one lap I overheard a nurse saying “That’s the biggest abdominal scar I’ve ever seen.” She didn’t know I was standing right there behind her. “Are you talking about me…???” She jumped. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were there.” “It’s ok.” At the time I guess I didn’t realize I had a 10” cut under my ribcage. It took a few days until I got to eat solid food. I didn’t know it, but they were waiting for me to pass gas before they’d let me eat. If I’d have known that, I’d have been trying to fart a lot sooner. Ahhh food… When the time came for my first bowel movement, I swear… Did they move that place to the left on me…??? I could barely reach it due to the pretty new design I had on my abdomen…
Wednesday, July 26th. I get to go home. No more fentanyl drip… here’s your instructions… “No lifting anything over… No this.. No that.. Oh… and no driving anywhere. And NO CLIMBING STAIRS, for at least 2 weeks.” I spent a lot of time sitting on the loveseat, walking around on the main floor of the house, laying in bed. I wanted to play on the computer. It was upstairs… I did it anyway, well maybe not the first couple days, but I did it anyway. I climbed the stairs… heh heh heh
The home Nurse came for my first visit to see how I was doing. “Are you taking your pain medications…???” “Well, I figured if I can tolerate it why take them…???” “You have them, TAKE them until they are gone. That way you can rest better and heal faster.” “I’ll see you in a week to take your staples out.” I was bored out of my mind sitting at home. You can only watch so many Sopranos episodes in a row until the theme music is burned into your brain. A week went by, the Nurse came back. “Let’s take those staples out.” “Can I do it…???” “Sure, if you want to, let me show you how to do it, and then you can give it a try.” After watching her do a few, I said, “You can do it, I’ll just lay back and watch.”
2 week post surgery meeting with my Urologist. “You’re healing nicely.” He lay out they plan, said he’ll watch me closely. “Doc… I’m bored as hell sitting at home. Can I go back to work…??? I mostly just sit there anyway. If I can sit at home, why can’t I just sit at work…??? “ “ABOSULTELY NOT, off 6 to 8 weeks” he said “well, maybe in a few more weeks.” “How long before I can golf again…???” “I’d really prefer that you didn’t even try for quite a while, maybe not until spring.” Dr Kronner was very informative. I’m glad this guy was my Urologist. He said, if I wanted, he’d recommend an Oncologist to talk to. After a while I did ask, and he referred me to Dr Amy Vander Woude at the Cancer and Hematology Centers of West Michigan. I went to the Grand Rapids Office for the first meeting. They also have an office in Holland, Michigan, which is where I go all the time now, it a little smaller, a little quieter, a little faster.
Pathology Report
Left Radical Nephrectomy, T2NxMx, Clear Cells with Furman Grade 2,
Size of Tumor, 11.5cm x 9.5cm x 7.5cm, still encapsulated.
Growing upward towards the adrenal gland and lung.
Adrenal gland is negative and periaortic lymph nodes are negative for metastatic disease.
In my time off, I researched nonstop … I found the Kidney-Onc on Listserv. What a great bunch of people, with all kinds of information. I overloaded myself with information, pictures, scan images, results, and stats… especially stats. I bombarded my wife the minute she walked through the door from work until we went to bed with my new found info. I drove her nuts.
Also during my time off from work, I talked to Scott by cell phone, and by email a lot. He told his mother about me and I corresponded with “Scott’s MOM” via email many times also. Scott told me one thing I still carry with me this day… “You might not have wanted it, but Kidney Cancer is YOUR disease now. You need to take control of it and be in charge of your options… It’s yours… Own it.”
So I had surgery on July 21st, and we have a family golf outing every year on Labor Day. This year it fell on September 4th. It was our side of the families turn to plan the outing. And I got nominated to do most of the planning since I was home anyway, healing. “You have time to plan it, and you can’t play anyway, Sooo, can you do it...??? ” If I’m going to plan it, I’m going to play in it too. I picked a short course, and I gave myself a good partner.
I talked Dr Kronner into letting me go back to work less than 5 weeks after surgery. “I’ll be OK. I’m tough, I can handle it.” After a few nights sitting in the Operators chair, I hurt like hell. How can sitting in a chair hurt so bad. What a miserable first week back at work. I’d research all night at work, and come home and hit her more with my findings during the night. I drove her nuts. It took me a few months to figure out she didn’t want to know what I was researching or what I found out, because she had been doing it behind my back without me knowing. She knew what could happen, but she didn’t want to know what could happen. I never saw her cry, but friends told me she was a wreck at work at times. She put up a good front.
I called Dr Kronner again… “I feel pretty good… can I try golfing…??? “ “Well… Don’t hurt yourself. I don’t want you to split open and have to fix it again.” “I’ll be OK.”
September 4th, Labor Day. I played in our Bultema Family Golf Outing. I played OK. I took it easy, but I played. Suprisingly… it didn’t hurt. Well… I didn’t tell anyone, even if it did… I was going to be OK.
Mid September 2006. I return to my dentists office for my second periodontal disease check-up. This time around it’s just me and the hygienist, Kristin. We joke a little, laugh a little and then Kristin stars my exam. She goes quiet… our joking and laughing are now replaced with silence. I finally ask her why she’s so quiet all of the sudden. She begins to explain that she’s wondering if what she’s seeing is really happening. My gums weren’t bleeding like the were, a few months earlier, there’s been a huge improvement in such a short time. Is this right… ??? She couldn’t believe it. Was it because I had that tumor growing in my kidney… ??? It had to be… I wasn’t doing anything different, other than using that nasty mouth wash twice a day. Wow… maybe those commercials are right, where you dentists may be able to tell you there might be underlying medical conditions affecting the health of your mouth…
I met Dr Amy Vander Woude about a month and a half after surgery, at the Cancer and Hematology Centers of West Michigan at the Grand Rapids location. We went over things I had a list of questions. I over-researched Kidney cancer. I asked questions I already knew the answers to, testing her knowledge. She had already talked with doctors at the University of Michigan in case I wanted to go higher. I asked about trials, she had info on one… At the time it was for Sutent, Nexavar and Placibo. She said think about it and if you’d like to enroll to let her know and we’d go from there. She said “I wouldn’t know what group I was in.” I told her “yes I will, I know the side effects from each drug, I’ll know which one I’m on and if I don’t get any side effects I’d know I was in the placebo group. “ She looked at me and said, “You know too much information, quit researching so much, that’s my job.” I finally decided…”Wait and watch, and quite looking for so much info…” was best for me. I like seeing Dr Vander Woude, she’s kind, polite and knowledgeable and… because she has done everything I have ever asked.
Dr Vander Woude also set me up with to consult with Director of Behavioral Oncology, Dr Jeff Porter, for a couple meetings to see how I was dealing mentally with cancer. I only met twice with Dr Porter, and found it beneficial to me. Survivor’s guilt was and at times is still my main issue.
The first year for me was kind of goofy. I would self exam and feel around for lymph nodes every day, many times a day. Any headache would throw me for a loop… “was it in my head now…???” Any ache or pain I documented and kept track of how long it lasted. It drove my wife nuts… It took a while for me to work through these self checks. I seldom do them now.
My first set of scans post nephrectomy, I had CT scans of the chest, abdomen and pelvis, along with a bone scan, for a baseline scan. I even had my brain scanned with that first CT. I wanted to see everything…
After that we alternated between 3 and 4 months for scans, mostly to take it easy on my remaining kidney, and also because I have been NED so far. I did this for the first 2 years.
From then until know we went with 6 month scans, and I have been clear with those as well. Now at 4 years post Neph, I am going to 12 month scans, and no more bone scans unless I feel like something isn’t right.
I feel awkward when I walk into the Cancer & Hematology Center. Nothing looks wrong with me, but I know… I look around and see patients that really need to be there, for treatments, and wonder… “Why am I here…???” but I know why, I need to be here. I need my scan results. I’ve never miss an appointment and I’ve never been late. So I go. And I will continue to go.
I don’t really get “scanxiety” when I go for my scans now. I have them a week before I meet with Dr Vander Woude, and then she goes over the results with me and sends me on my way. If anything was wrong she’d call me before the appointment to let me know, we’ve talked about that before. I don’t want to get careless, because I’ve had NED results, but the question is always in the back of my head… “Where is it now…???”
My next scan routine will be, in June of 2011. I wll be getting blood drawn 2 weeks before my Oncology appointment, have my CT scans of the chest and abdomen this next time 1 week be fore the Oncology appointment, and then see Dr Vander Woude for the results.
I love taking care of my yard. I had a blank canvass to work with when we bought our house. Everything that I’ve planted is exactly where I want it. From the many specialty trees I’ve planted down the strawberry plants and annuals that I’ve planted this spring. I love to create, I love being outside.
I currently golf in a league once a week, I bicycle quite a bit now, and will occasionally go for a jog. For a while I even did those P90X dvds, as seen on TV. I haven’t finished a full 90 days of it. But I have gone 60 days the first time, that was in 2008, and I went about 35 days the second time. I should do it again, and finish it this time. When I did do it, I loved it. You know you’ve done something when you do a P90X DVD. They’re by no means easy, but heck, I’m only in my early 40’s, I can do it...right…??? I haven’t fully decided to get back in shape yet… Maybe it’s time…
As for medication, I do take Atenolol for borderline high blood pressure. This is the only medication I currently take. I try to avoid anything else. If I do need anything, especially for the occasional headache I take Tylenol.
If there is one thing I would suggest, it’s what my friend Scott said to me… “You might not have wanted it, but Kidney Cancer is YOUR disease now. You need to take control of it and be in charge of your options… It’s yours… Own it.”
Another thing I would suggest, when your appointments come, if you have questions or want something done, fax in a list of things ahead of time of the things you want done, this way your caregivers can be prepared ahead of time and already have the answers or things you need for the tests you want to do, if you need them. It’s yours now…Own It.
Thank you for reading My Story…
I wish all of you the Best,
Tim Kehrwecker – N.E.D. - 4 year survivor and counting
Holland Michigan
These are my contacts:
Holland Hospital - http://hoho.org/
Western Michigan Urological Associates PLC- http://www.westernmichiganurology.com/index.html
Cancer & Hematology Centers of Western Michigan, P.C. - http://www.chcwm.com/index.asp
Dr Amy Vander Woude - http://www.chcwm.com/medicalpro/physicians.asp#AVanderWoude
**Dr Kronner has since moved out to Missoula, Montanna - http://www.fivevalleysurology.com/
http://www.fivevalleysurology.com/about/kevin-kronner-md/
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