by Scott Ebisch

Created on: December 09, 2008

I'm not sure how or when I accepted the diagnosis. It took about 45 days from the time I spotted the bump in my neck until I got the two phone calls telling me the tumors didn't match and I indeed had two different cancers.

Maybe because of the the time spent in those 45 days to biopsy the tumors in my neck and chest and then my kidney to rule out metastatic Kidney cancer and/or a form of Hodgkin's lymphoma it sank in. We knew what they suspected it to be, I first heard the words "Cancerous Activity" over the phone after the results of my original ultrasound came back. This lead to my first CT scan.

It was that CT scan which found a 7.5 cm mass (tumor) on my left kidney. My Dr's were scrambling for answers. Some time after I found the bump on my neck which was November 4, 2006 and December 19, 2006 when I was officially diagnosed reality sank in. Perhaps knowing my Dr's had a plan of attack for any and all scenarios allowed me and my wife to accept the fact that I had a fight ahead of me and that as long as we were fighting we were going to deal with it and that made it okay. It had to make it okay we had no choice.

We couldn't change the fact that I apparently had Renal Cell Carcinoma (Kidney Cancer) for possibly 3-5 years before I developed Lymphoma. The sad fact was if not for developing lymphoma we may never caught the Kidney cancer. I had no known symptoms at the time and if it metastasized I might not be writing this article right now.

I have two children under ten years old. Accepting Cancer as a father to two small children was very hard to do but it also proved to be my greatest strength. I had to fight, not only was I too young to have cancer but I wasn't about to let my kids grow up without me.

Any form of cancer is hard. The treatments are very harsh and even if there is a more natural solution to killing the cancer my only choice was to follow my Dr's orders and get chemotherapy, after they removed the kidney. There isn't a day that goes by that I am not reminded of it. The physical scars alone bring it all back.

I read that cancer may leave your body but it never leaves your life and this is so true. It changed my perspective on everything, it made me prioritize what was really important and it has made life a little bit sweeter because having recognized my own mortality at 37 years old I am acutely aware of just how short life actually can be.

I have been in remission since May 18, 2007.

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