[skunkwerks]

Just a quick story about one of my friends I worked with for 20 years.

He retired last October 2025 at age 64. Was planning to live a long life and had regular check-ups with blood work and the usual tests every year. Necessity because he was a pilot.

Two months later woke up pissing blood and found out he had stage 4 kidney
cancer. No symptoms prior. Nothing on his tests showed this. They removed his left kidney to get it out. After that they noticed it had spread to his liver and lung.

Take away from this is please do not just trust blood work to tell you everything is OK.
Please get a full body scan to check for heart and other problems and Identify small things before they get bigger and can be treated sooner. Especially with cancer.
If he would have had 3-5 year body scans he probably would not be in this situation. Nothing is 100% but it likely would have caught this early and been more treatable before it spread.
Also, poop in a bucket is not that telling either.
I just finished my tail pipe check and full body scan to make sure there is nothing wrong. Better to get eyes on the situation than to fully trust a blood test.
Well worth the 135.00 buck co-pay for tail pipe and 600.00 for the body scan to get it done before I retire.

I want to enjoy the car hobby as long as I can.
I have worked hard all my life and don't want to cut it short just because I'm too lazy or distracted to get this done.
Please make this a priority as no one can care about you as much as you do.

Peace of mind is a great thing when you get older.

[sdbob]

Yes they found mine by ckg for constipation. Initially said prostate,then said false positive something about dye staining prostate. Then the lymphoma diagnosis. Anyway the Dr Ho I'm seeing at Hillman Shadyside said the scanner they have is one of the best$$$$$$$ He can really "see" into the node he said. The scanner at Hillman Greensburg is not as good he said still good though. Yes I recommend the scan. Table can be very hard. If you have back problems you may want to ask Dr for something to relax you.Then a 2nd driver. The better scanner does the job about 10 minutes faster. I know from experience, ugh for the longer one. Not sure of makes of scanners. Please do yourself and family a favor even upset stomach or digestive issues get the scan.

[sdbob]

My blood work in December before my last scan , and blood work in March ,and past Wednesday the PA said gives them an 'indication' of what is going on. So Dr put off new scan till November. Just to clarify. Bob

[The Champ]

I've had regular oncology checkups for 20 years. Luckiest guy in the world to have had emergency lung surgery because that's how they discovered my renal cell cancer of my right kidney (lost 20% of the kidney).

Kept going for my checkups for 9.5 years (2015) - told my wife that would be the last time - but was diagnosed with renal cell cancer of the pancreas.

After that, I committed to followups whenever my Oncologist wanted me to. One more surgery in 2017.

So far so good since then.

[sdbob]

Nice. I'll keep you guys in my thoughts and prayers.