03/02/2026
Today marks 6 years since our son was diagnosed with kidney cancer. March is kidney cancer awareness month.
It took another 2 weeks after diagnosis to figure out what type of kidney cancer he had. He had Translocation Renal Cell Carcinoma, which is extremely rare, especially in pediatrics. He was one of only 8 kids known to have this cancer worldwide that year. By the time we found his tumor, it's was 10cm. In 2 weeks it had grown to 12cm and was deemed too large to operate and had metastasized to his lymph nodes. It is a very aggressive and fast growing cancer. Treatment options for even adults are still, to this day, not great. They are still trying to find good options for treatment since it doesn't respond to normal chemo treatments. It's even harder for pediatrics, because their bodies can only handle so much and a lot of drugs are not approved for adolescents.
..6 whole years.