I have had a fascination with all types of gadgets and gizmos since I was a child. One of my earliest gadget memories was a Christmas when I was given yet another doll, and my brother got the coolest toy robot in the world. It didn’t take me too long to convince him that he wanted to trade…really!

And thus, the monster was born.

I never expected to become a prolific writer, it just kind of happened. I got my start in late 1999 after answering a software reviewer request at the now defunct smaller.com. By mid 2000 I knew that I wanted my reviews to focus not only on software, but also on the PDA hardware which I found so fascinating.

I soon became an occasional reviewer at The Gadgeteer, back when it was a much smaller site – basically run single-handedly by its editor-in-chief, Julie Strietelmeier. Within six months I was Julie’s writing partner, and for the next six years I had the privilege of being part of something truly amazing. As part of our team, I made a direct contribution to the Gadgeteer’s enormous growth from a well regarded enthusiast’s site into a world-wide recognized authority on gadgets, gizmos and their accessories. Due to my work at the Gadgeteer, I have earned a solid reputation as a respected consumer reviewer.

However, I am first and foremost a gadget enthusiast as well as an actual consumer.

I’ve wasted more money than I care to recount on devices that promised performance which was never delivered, and I have had the pleasure of discovering little known gadgets that performed so well, I couldn’t wait to share my happy discovery.

I’ve always had topics which I wanted to write about that didn’t quite fit into the confines of the typical structured gadget review, so for five and a half years I kept a blog on The Gadgeteer called Judie’s Gear Diary, often telling people to “read about it in my gear diary”. Which is why it only seemed natural that when I considered starting my own site, I continued with the name Gear Diary.

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This entry is not gadget related, and it is highly personal. But if helps one person then I won’t feel bad about having shared a bit “too much information”.

So here goes…

A couple of months ago I noticed a small amount of blood in my urine. This occurred on two different occasions in a three week period. While I thought it was strange, I wasn’t overly worried. Thinking that I might have a urinary tract infection, I made an appointment with my gynecologist. The test came back negative for a UTI, but my urine did test positive for an abnormally high blood level. After various tests were performed and “female” issues had been ruled out, it was determined that I might have a problem with my kidney, bladder or urethra. An appointment was made with a Urologist, but there was over a month’s wait before I could get in to see him.

During the wait, we went on vacation and not once did I have abnormal bleeding. In fact, I almost cancelled the appointment with the Urologist because I felt fine and I was having no further symptoms. I very rarely get sick and I hate going to doctors almost as much as I hate having to take medicine. People who are always talking about their medical problems and hypochondriacs are two of my biggest pet peeves, so I started rationalizing and telling myself that the blood in my urine must have been a fluke. Julie told me I should still see the Doctor, that I probably had a stone. “Stones hurt,” I told her, “I know I don’t have a stone.”

After waiting over a month I finally got in to see the Urologist. I told him I was embarrassed to take up his time – that I had no pain and I hadn’t had blood in my urine in over a month. I think the most alarming thing that I told him was that I had no pain. He was ready to schedule an Intravenous Pyelogram, or IVP. “Sure, stones hurt,” he said, “but cancer doesn’t.”

Holy crap…did he just mention the C word?

FYI – If you have unexplained blood in your urine and there is no flank pain, it is not normal. Get thee to the doctor…

The IVP results showed a 1.5cm “filling defect” in my right kidney. What the heck is a filling defect? Well, it can be anything from a kidney stone to a cancerous tumor.

Next up was a lower abdominal CT Scan, which showed nothing abnormal in my right kidney, but it did show a 0.5cm non-calcified nodule on my right lung. My Urologist began preparing me for the worst. He needed to do a more invasive cystoscopy and ureteroscopy as well as an additional contrast dye with x-rays on my urinary tract which would require day surgery. Based on my CT Scan he knew this was not a stone, it had to be some other non-calcified mass. If he didn’t like what he saw in my kidney when he got in with the scope, or if there was a blockage and he couldn’t get in with the scope, then my right kidney was coming out.

If I had the exploratory surgery and nothing was found, I would likely go home the same day, but if they actually removed my kidney, then I could expect to stay in the hospital for at least five days. It really bothered him that there was a spot on the same side of my lungs as the filling defect; so he was also referring me to a pulmonary specialist – who would not be able to see me until October 31st.

I cried like a bitter fool when I heard this. I cried while they drew blood for a battery of pre-op tests, and I continued crying as they whisked me into radiology and I cried all though an upper respiratory CT Scan. Not big heaving sobs, but the quiet kind where tears just roll down your face and no matter what you do, you can’t make them stop. I think I scared everyone in the clinic that came into contact with me; I was scaring myself. It mortifies me even now to admit that I could. not. stop. crying. All I could think of was “non-calcified mass”, which meant “tumor”, which meant “cancer”, which meant it was “my turn” to go through what my ex had gone through four years ago.

The new CT Scan results came in a few days later. The good news was that there was no lymph node activity in my upper or lower chest. The bad news was that the scan showed two additional sub-centimeter spots on my right lungs.

Exploratory day surgery for my right kidney was scheduled for September 6th.

In the two weeks leading up to the surgery, I carried on as best I could. I was acting as if nothing was wrong, but it was really wearing me down. Everything was going so well, too! I helped with Sigma Kappa’s formal recruitment, I was asked to be Geek of the Week on Born Rich, I was planning to attend the upcoming Mobius event in Thailand, I was offered an MVP-type position with a company I respect, and I had just received an email from the Ellen Degeneres show because they had seen my Born Rich profile. In other words I did not have time to be sick. Period.

With the day surgery date looming ahead, I went ahead and updated my vaccinations in anticipation of going to Thailand; my reasoning being that if I didn’t get them, then I would be admitting I couldn’t go.

I did a video review and submitted it to the Ellen show, because it was a challenge and I didn’t want to admit that I was afraid.

I filled out the Geek of the Week interview questions and submitted them the day before my surgery, knowing that if I put them off they would not be done until after I got out of the hospital – at least a week later.

And instead of writing the two reviews that I had planned on having ready for Tuesday & Friday, my regular posting days, I just wrote Tuesday’s. My reasoning was that if I had the Friday review ready then I would not be home to work on it; I would be in the hospital.

So Wednesday morning my ex and I showed up for day surgery. There were two operating rooms prepared for me: one for looking into my kidney and removing tissue for testing, and one for removing the kidney if the doctor saw anything remotely resembling cancer. I told my doctor before I was taken to the OR that if he had to take my kidney, to please make the smallest incision possible because I still wanted to go to Thailand. He told me he didn’t think Thailand would be happening. My anesthesiologist told me that going to Thailand two weeks after kidney removal was not being realistic, and I knew they were right. I just couldn’t accept that I wasn’t going, because then I would be admitting that I was losing my kidney because I had cancer. They really acted like they expected me to wake up minus one bean shaped organ; I was terrified they knew something further that they weren’t telling me.

My ex and Grabb were in my room when they came to roll my bed to the OR. The doctor had left and we had already agreed that it sounded like they were pretty certain that my kidney was coming out. I was resigned; it was really happening. My ex told me that he loved me and gave me a kiss; Grabb got teary when he kissed me goodbye and told me he loved me, and it took everything in me to keep from tearing up until I had been pushed far enough down the hall that the guys couldn’t see me. I knew I was going to lose my kidney, I knew I had cancer, I knew I was going to be in the hospital for a week, I knew that I wasn’t going to Thailand, and I knew that it was going to hurt a lot when I woke up.

In the first OR, which was freezing cold, the anesthesiologist was joking about how I didn’t have enough insulation if I was that cold. I said something like, “No, it’s because I am practically naked on this metal ta-…”

And that’s the last thing I remember before drifting into la la land.

When I awoke in the recovery room, the first thing I saw was the clock on the wall – which showed I had only been out for about an hour. In a fog, I mentally adjusted the time and reasoned that I had actually been out for the full day. I laid there trying to decide what exactly hurt the most, and to my surprise I decided that it was my throat, probably from the breathing tube. My right side was throbbing, and I seriously thought I needed to pee. A couple shots of Demerol later, and that urgent need was gone; evidently it was a side effect of the procedure.

My doctor came by and told me that I still had my kidney, that he had removed two blood clots, that one was pretty large, but YES – I would be going to Thailand after all – once they removed the stent that had been inserted. I didn’t find out until later that a blood clot in the kidney can be very serious – it can travel to the lung and cause an embolism. All I knew was that blood clot sounded wayyyyyy better than tumor. When I asked what had caused the blood clots, my doctor had some suggestions: trauma to the kidney, a passed stone that caused bleeding as it made it’s way through, trauma from a previous infection. Who knows what caused my clots; I am just glad that they are now gone.

Today I saw the pulmonary specialist. They had a cancellation and my case looked “interesting” so I was bumped to the head of the line. After showing us the latest CT Scans, the doctor said that the best course of action will be regular CT Scans for the next two years. Two of the spots are too small to biopsy without removing a portion of my lung’s lobe. The better option would be to observe the spots over time and see if they stay the same, which would indicate some past non-growing trauma. If they do grow, then we can do a biopsy or surgery at a later date. Right now I am feeling pretty lucky, so I am going to hold onto the notion that these spots are the result of a lifetime of exposure to dust, pollution & occasional second hand smoke.

The point of my story is simple: Male or female, if you have unexplained bleeding without any pain, do not put off going to the doctor. Microscopic amounts of blood in the urine might be normal, but if you can see it and you don’t feel any pain, then there is the possibility that you have something seriously wrong. I don’t know what would have happened if I had not gone to the doctor, maybe nothing…but maybe things would have turned out much worse. Whatever was going wrong in me has been caught in time, and I would want the same for you. :0)