What does kidney cancer do to you?

In what stage of kidney cancer can you physically feel it?

• just wondering, at what point in the kidney cancer can the person actually feel a lump or be in pain? which stage/how bad?

• Answer:

  I had a 10.5cm tumor as part of a 15cm mass that had no overt symptoms ie. I could take off my shirt and the RN/Physician could not feel it. There is no blood test that will detect it. Also I had no pain or blood in my urine. I had some mild fatigue but was very active and worked two jobs. I was being treated for a vitamin D deficiency and I had a very slight increase in my calcium level. My physician was testing me for a possible thyroid problem, and the results of that testing came back normal. A CT scan was done - and that's when the whopper tumor was discovered. It was technically a stage 3, but within 4mos of my nephrechtomy it had metestazed to my bones, and a few months ago I had to have my right humerus<upper right arm bone>removed and replaced with a plate and cement... My worst systemic pain was when it had spread to my arm ie. it ate up over half my arm bone and cause microfractures to the bone, and my arm bone was on the verge of snapping. I reacted to the anesthesia then too - and lost 50lbs. in body weight. Sometimes a person will not even discover they have kidney cancer until such an advanced state. About 3% of all new cancers reported in the USA and the UK are Kidney cancers, so it's somewhat rare. Twice as many men contract it as women. About 1/2 of Kidney cancers involve a defect of the VHL gene. Obesity and Smoking are risk factors<I am not obiese and had quit smoking cigarettes about 5 years before discovering it - and I do have distant ancestors born with Kidney defects> It tends to not respond to traditional chemotherapy, but does respond to immunotherapy drugs like interferon. In early stages it is rather easily curable via surgery, which is what is so frustrating. Finding it an early stage cures it, but it's often tough to find. Some people have symptoms at an early cureable stage, but quite a few of us don't have any symptoms...so if there's a history in your family and/or you're just concerned, I'd get a CT scan. I'm now considered terminal, but if I had not been scanned I would have likely died several months ago. I'm still a fighter, and I'm active, and I haven't given up hope. . I would like to see this cancer defeated - and the key is simply early detection and better ways to detect it.