Jack Vitale is a stage 4 kidney cancer survivor. He shares how he’s managed his diagnosis, treatments and side-effects and how he lives every day with kidney cancer. This is his story.
I was always generally healthy. I went for regular yearly checkups and had just gotten a clean bill of health. I was always a few pounds overweight, so I tried to lose the weight, and then suddenly, the pounds really came off. I never expected what was about to happen.
On November 19, 2014, I went to work as usual, and at lunch time, noticed my urine was rusty colored. I was not feeling too good. I went home and later that night my urine clearly had blood in it. I started bleeding pretty bad. My wife took me to the ER, because we figured I had a kidney stone. They took a CT scan and I waited a long time and 2 doctors came in the room looking at the floor. They said that the CT scan showed a huge mass on my kidney. My wife said not to worry that they can take one kidney out. Then the other doctor said that the scan caught the bottom of my lungs and there were nodules there, and that the cancer had metastasized.
They discharged me and my wife and I stood in the parking lot crying and not knowing what to do or where to go. It was about 3:00 a.m. and cold. We went home, laid in bed with our eyes wide open for hours. I thought my life was over. As soon as my GP opened, we went there, then to a urologist, where I was in agony and throwing up. He sent me to another hospital where I had an emergency nephrectomy.
The worst thing I ever had to do was tell my kids, parents, sister, family and friends that I had stage 4 Kidney cancer. I cried for days and couldn’t even talk.
Fast forwarding, I’ve had high dose IL-2, which cleared one lung and kept me stable awhile. I had thoracic surgery to remove one lobe of my lung and 3 wedge resections, leaving me with No Evidence of Disease (NED). Then the tumors came back right away in my lungs, and they were growing aggressively. I went into a clinical trial with Pembrolizumab and a JAK1 inhibitor. This worked for 9 months. Then I started Votrient, which I am currently on.
Through all of this, my health and quality of life hasn’t changed much. I have dealt with some side effects, including serious depression, but have gotten through all of that. I still work every day, and even got a promotion. I’m still an active musician on the weekends, playing percussion and drums. Through the grace of God, my wife and family and friends, I’ve learned to appreciate every day, good or bad. I’ve made a lot of friends through the Smart Patients kidney cancer community. Some that I’ve met, and some that I haven’t. And I pray for them every day. They are my new extended family. I am grateful for organizations such as KCCure that advocate for so many people like myself. I’m not dying of cancer — I’m living with it.
