Well, this is really weird.

Last week, a scan found some nodules on my dad’s lungs.  He had kidney cancer and had a nephrectomy three years ago, so they’ve been scanning him every 6 months to check for metastasis. He’s been in remission since then, and to be honest, I’d nearly forgotten that he ever had cancer in the first place. This news is kind of hitting me hard here.

I’ve found some information on the Internet related to the nodules, such as:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/lung-nodules/AN01082

Some stuff in this article is not too comforting, although I do appreciate the first sentence very much. Bad news: larger nodules have a greater tendency to be cancerous, and he’s got one large one. But good news: most nodules overall are non-cancerous, and there are lots of things that can cause non-cancerous ones.

My husband also says (and he would know–he lost his mom to breast cancer when he was in college) that this should not be thought of as possible lung cancer. If it is cancer, then it’s most likely kidney cancer–some of the kidney cancer cells broke free and found their way to the lungs. So they’d be kidney cells growing out of control on his lungs, not lung cells.

Anyway, I just called and spoke with my dad. He’s obviously concerned but is educated about it (I imagine he’s been Googling etc.) and seems optimistic. He says he feels great and has a gut feeling that it’ll turn out not to be malignant. He described the many symptoms he had before the kidney cancer was diagnosed and says that nothing like that is happening now. Let’s hope he knows his own body. He’s in decent spirits. He also said that my stepmother is pretty upset.

Just a bit of news. I’ll update as more news comes in.