It was the 1st of October of 2009, when I received my Kidney Cancer diagnosis. Just shortly before that, I got really scared when I saw dark red blood while I was urinating. I picked up the phone right away and made an appointment with an Urologist. Since we both speculated that I probably had kidney stones, I was sent to get a CT-Scan to get clarity.

However, the CT-Scan came back with a totally different result. There was a huge black spot which turned out to be a tumor of 2.5 inches in size. Also, there was no way to save the organ and therefore I had a radical nephrectomy – the removal of the entire kidney – done via a minimally invasive procedure on November 30th.

It’s exactly two weeks now since I had my surgery done. Time to have a look at the current situation.

I am happy to report that the recovery process is going remarkably well. There are obviously a few things I can’t do, like stretching, jogging, lifting heavy things, but I can walk and move around normally. What amazes me the most, though; there aren’t any dietary restriction and the fact that I don’t feel any difference living with one kidney only.

Considering that an entire organ was just removed from my body, I would have thought that there was some sort of adjustment period. But I really can’t feel any difference at all. I was told that I could eat and drink whatever I want. Only foods high in potassium or produce high levels of uric acid, I was advised to consume in moderation only.

However, I did make a decision to be extra cautious. Meat, I never really liked anyway, so it was easy for me to scratch it off the list entirely. The same is true for candy and all the sugary stuff. And also all alcoholic beverages. When my wife got diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year, we both immediately changed to a very healthy lifestyle, which means cutting out everything that could be detrimental to our health.

A year back ago, I suffered from gout attacks. I had blood-work done and my urine checked and it turned out that the levels of uric acid found in my body were way high. I hope you never suffered from a gout attack, the pain is brutal. I guess there is only one thing that actually caued me more pain, and that was the stent that was put into my ureter during a surgical procedure.

So I had the choice – staying off of anything that produces high levels of uric acid or to continue suffering from gout attacks. Apparently, this was a no brainer. Instead I joined my wife in living as healthy as possible. Very little processed food only, a lot of green and leafy stuff, green vegetable smoothies with some fruit, veggie juices made of locally grown organic produce, grains like millet, amaranth, brown rice pasta, etc.

I always ate a lot and I probably will keep doing that in the future. That’ just me. But you know what’s cool? Since I only eat good quality and healthy stuff, I lost quite some weight over the past few months. I am now back at 180 lbs (I am 6′ tall).

Well, I guess the point is: I feel good and the only thing I miss at this point is to work out again. That, though, is not possible, yet, because it would be certainly detrimental to my recovery process.

Most importantly and to my surprise, I am already doing very well.

The author Tony Ulrich provides kidney cancer information on his kidney cancer website where he talks about how his own and his wife’s cancer diagnoses have changed their lives.

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