Hi, I just stumbled onto this website moments ago.
My husband, Herb was diagnosed with Bilateral Renal Carcinoma in September of 2005. He had no symptoms, but thanks to an emergency appendectomy the kidney tumors were found. My husband had to get 25% of one kidney removed and the other kidney totally removed. We thought we were through with all this until this past February a scan revealed the return of renal cancer in his lungs. Thus, my husband had been on Sutent since the end of June. The Sutent is working but the side effects are becoming troublesome: diarrhea, weight loss, metallic taste and loss of appetite. My husband has lost about 40 pounds and can't seem to keep up with having his clothes tailored. He is fatigued and seems to be cold all the time. We are grateful that he has been able to work for 98% of the time he is on treatement, but I know he is tired. (We also have a 4 year old who, unfortunately, is used to hospitals and doctors, and the phrase: "Daddy, isn't feeling well today, honey...........")
My husband just returned home from the hospital on Thursday, October 4th. It appears that he now has Gout on top of everything else - he is also a Diabetic, with high blood pressure and high cholesterol. The majority of treatments for Gout is not compatible with my husband's kidney situation, so we have to be careful here as well.
At any rate, my husband is mid way through Round 3 of treatment with the Sutent. He'll have his two weeks off, and then he'll be ready for another round. My husband doesn't say much about his condition, but admitted to me yesterday, that: "...I'm tired of all of this..........." He feels bad that his physical problems take its toll on me and our daughter. We seem to always be waiting for "the other shoe to drop." Whenever a new physical problem becomes apparent, we cannot ignore it and oftentimes ask ourselves, "what next?"
Are we the only ones who feel this way?