Oh, how I wanted to be surprised. I wanted to be shocked, disbelieving: “What?! Really? It shrunk? It disappeared? It can do that??”

But no, I was not surprised. It was as we had thought. And as we had feared.

This little mass has doubled in size, from 1 centimeter in diameter to 2, in the past three weeks.  That pretty much does it for us, that’s about as certain as they come. We’re still going to do a needle biopsy before scheduling surgery, just to be positive sure, but it would be pretty shocking if this wasn’t a cancerous tumor. There’s really nothing else that it could be.

We’ll try to schedule a biopsy for later this week, which requires a two-nght stay, one for pre-hydration and one for observation in case it causes excess bleeding in the kidney. Then, assuming that proves that this is indeed cancer, we would schedule a surgery for the following week to remove that tough little kidney.

Oh, that kidney. I am mourning that kidney already. It has surprised and impressed us all over the past two years and I really wanted to see how far it could go, how many years its can-do, no-quit attitude would give us. And now, we will take it out before it ever has the chance to prove all it is capable of.

We’re still calm, strangely so. Numb, I guess. Not surprised, which helps. This has been a long time coming. That whole October dilemma about the cystic lesion prepared us for this, let us wrap our heads around the idea of dialysis and transplant, made us really contemplate what might lie ahead of us.

Back in March, when that new tumor appeared and we thought his cancer had recurred, that time was shocking. That knocked the wind out of us, sent us reeling, spinning out of control. We had so firmly believed it was over, we had so firmly believed we were sfae. And we weren’t. But that episode taught us a lot. We’ve been on our toes ever since. And so today, we are not surprised.

Oh, how I wanted to be surprised.

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