I wasn’t expecting the doctors to tell me I had cancer. It all started in December of 2020 when I had back surgery. Afterward, I started to feel a numbness in my legs. I’d go horseback riding and couldn’t tell if my feet were secure in the stirrups or dangling uselessly in the open air. Horseback riding is a big part of my life, so I had to figure out what was wrong.
The fact that we caught my kidney cancer so early is amazing. It was the day before my regular medical exam in 2021, and I was going through some old medical records. I just happened to have them with me because I had changed doctors.
I found a chest X-ray from 2014, and at the bottom of the page, it said that I had a growth on my spleen. That was the first I’d heard anything about that, because nobody ever said anything to me about it. So I took it to my medical exam the next day.
My journey with kidney cancer actually started when I fell in my driveway and injured my eye. I had to go to the hospital for treatment, and they gave me anesthesia before stitching up the eye. After they sent me home, I had trouble urinating.
The doctors said it was probably a side effect of the anesthesia. But a couple of days later, when I had to go back to the hospital for a follow-up procedure, it hadn’t gotten better. By then, my bladder was so full I felt like I would explode.
My name is Norm Faus III. I live in Lititz, Pennsylvania, which is about 80 miles west of Philadelphia. My wife and I have been married for 53 years. We have two grown children and several grandchildren. That makes me an old man of 73.
Generally, I’ve been very healthy over the years. The only thing I did develop, about 20 years ago, is peripheral neuropathy. It was what the doctors call idiopathic, meaning I didn’t have diabetes or cancer or anything that would have caused it to develop. Otherwise, I haven’t had any serious health issues.
Eleven years ago, I went in for a routine ultrasound to evaluate my pregnancy. I had no idea that the test would completely change my life and lead to a diagnosis of kidney cancer.