This is a guest post by Maritza Job Giordano, 37. Maritza was diagnosed with stage 2 renal cell carcinoma in 2023. She lives in Colorado with her husband and two children.
On the evening of August 30, 2023, my life changed drastically. I caught a stomach bug and quickly became ill. Ultimately, I became so dehydrated that I ended up going to the ER at my husband and mom’s advice, practically against my will. My mom drove me and my husband, Jeff, stayed home with our son and daughter.
While in the ER, I mentioned that I was feeling abdominal pain, which I attributed to the C-section that I’d had 5 months prior. The doctor suggested scanning my abdomen to check for infection and to make sure everything looked normal with my incision. I thought it was a bit dramatic but agreed.
Shortly after, the doctor came into the room and began to ask me very specific questions. “Do you have blood in your urine? Are you experiencing any lower back pain?”.
I answered no to both, and then asked if everything was ok with my scan. His face became serious as he said “no”, the scan wasn’t “ok”. He explained that the scan revealed that there was a 7 cm mass on my left kidney. The mass was an incidental find and unrelated to the stomach bug.
“Is that big?” I asked. His response was – “bigger than a baseball”. He explained that the mass was concerning for cancer. The doctor gave me the number of an oncologist and advised me to call first thing the next morning. My mom and I sat in the room waiting to be discharged, trying to process the information. I called my husband and dad, devastated myself, and I knew that in delivering the news, I had just shattered their worlds too.
My daughter had been baptized just 2 months prior in June. Her baptism date fell on Father’s Day and we knew it would be difficult for some of our family to make it, but I felt an unexplainable urgency to baptize her. Fast forward to driving home from the ER after being told you have a tumor in your kidney, bigger than a baseball and it’s likely cancer.
When you’re told you might have cancer, it feels like a death sentence. All I could think of was my babies who were at the time, 5 months and 2 years old. They needed a mom and I needed them. We had grown our family in such a short time and I’d been perfectly healthy. My babies were healthy. How could I have cancer? It didn’t make sense and it didn’t seem fair. I felt so scared and mostly for my kids. I was scared of them growing up without a mom.
A voice in my head said “you gave your babies to Jesus”. And I had. I had baptized my babies and in doing so, I’d turned them over to the Lord. I wanted to be here (alive) with them, and I knew I’d fight as hard as I had to, to mother them and to raise them. But if I wasn’t, I knew in my soul that God will provide them with all that they need. As tough of a pill as that was to swallow, it gave me a tremendous amount of peace. It was like as soon as I began to panic, Jesus said “I won’t leave you and I won’t leave them” – my faith was stronger than my fear.
The next morning, I called the oncologist and they were able to squeeze me in that same day. My husband kept reassuring me on the drive there, “we don’t know if its cancer”. We knew we’d have to wait for a defined answer. However, we didn’t have to wait long.
We met with Dr. Suzanne Merrill (an actual angel on earth) and she explained that she was confident it was cancer. There was no reason for a biopsy, and she stated that even in the event it was benign, the tumor was large and disruptive enough that it needed to be removed regardless. We left with an answer that we had most feared.
I was prescribed more scans and soon after I had a surgery date. The good news was that based on the scans, it appeared that the cancer was contained. I was told the surgery “should be” the only treatment necessary, unless the pathology came back showing a more aggressive cancer. On October 11, 2023, I underwent an open partial nephrectomy. During the 4-hour surgery, the tumor was removed from my kidney. What remained of the kidney was then reconstructed.
I remember closing my eyes as the anesthesia began to take effect. I was being wheeled away from a pre-op room as my husband, mom, and dad walked out to the waiting area- all with tears in their eyes. I was in the hospital for a total of 6 days. During that time, my husband, family and friends alternated keeping me company at the hospital and being home with our kids.
I thought that getting through the surgery would bring me some sense of relief because the biggest part was over. I didn’t anticipate how uneasy it was to wait for pathology results. The pathology would identify the stage of the cancer and determine if I needed more treatment, like immunotherapy. I also didn’t anticipate that my recovery would take longer than most.
Due to my kidney not healing as expected, I experienced fevers, infection, and a urine leak from my kidney. This resulted in a lower back drain as well as a catheter and required extra treatment. I was restricted from lifting and doing most activities for an extended period of time. I wasn’t able to pick up my children, especially with the risk of them – by then 2 years old and 8 months, – pulling at my drain or catheter.
It took nearly 3 months for my kidney to heal. My last procedure was in January 2024, the removal of a stent. At this point I wanted nothing more than to feel “back to normal”. For the 3 months prior, I’d been stuck in a post operative cycle of complications, as we waited to see if/how my kidney was healing.
I was so excited to be moving on. But in reality, I was a shell of the person I’d been pre-cancer. I felt a heavy psychological whiplash of what I’d been through in the months prior. From an unexpected diagnosis to surgery, and then a long recovery with many complications.
What weighed most heavily on me – I felt inadequate as a mother and wife because my children and husband hadn’t been able to rely on me for 3 months. Even more difficult than the physical recovery, was mothering with wide open arms. Watching my babies be carried, fed, changed, and taken care of by everyone else other than me was the most helpless I have ever felt.
It was a demonstration that they (and we) are loved, because we had so many people open their hearts to our family. And at the time, I knew I had to get better to be able to be there for them again. But none of that made it easier to accept. This is the hardest part of my story to reflect on and share. As a mom and wife, I want to do as much as I can for my family. And for 3 months, which felt like an eternity, I couldn’t.
The most reassuring for me was knowing and being confident that my husband is a good dad, and he carried the weight. He, along with my parents, family, and friends walked through every new challenge with me. Together they offered us love, support, childcare, meals, and prayers.
My medical team also gave me confidence in my recovery when I was unsure if my kidney would eventually heal. I can’t even put into words or explain the gratitude that I have for my surgeon and oncologist, Dr. Merrill. She was kind, knowledgeable and helped me navigate every aspect of my recovery. She answered all of my questions and treated my family and I with such compassion.
“My maiden name is Job, a biblical story of suffering and a faithful God. Jesus was walking alongside me and my family through this journey and continues to do so.”
And of course, my faith. The most reassuring of all. My maiden name is Job, a biblical story of suffering and a faithful God. Jesus was walking alongside me and my family through this journey and continues to do so. There’s no way I could have gone through this without my trust in God.
Knowing now and living with the reality that the cancer can come back is something that I struggle with. The monitoring and surveillance for recurrence is something I’m both grateful for and terrified of, however, I’ve accepted that it’s what my health requires. I try to focus on the things I can control such as my diet and continuing strong communication with my medical team.
In addition, I’ve added a mental health professional to the mix. I have been seeing a therapist that focuses on trauma and death – two things that are more on my radar now than ever before. I embrace the additional support because it’s proven to be helpful.
I’m now 8 months post-surgery and life is starting to feel somewhat back to how it was before my diagnosis. My scans have been good and I’m on the up and up!
There’s never a good time to have cancer, but I do believe that timing is everything. I can’t help but to be appreciative of my cancer’s timing. As kidney cancer is (in most cases) a slow growing cancer, it’s safe to say that it was present during my pregnancies. If it had been found sooner, I might not have had my babies, or been able to grow our family when we did. If I hadn’t gotten sick with a stomach bug when I did, ended up in the ER with a very cautious doctor on that exact night, this incidental find wouldn’t have happened. Even the oncologist being able to squeeze me in on the same day I called (unheard of!), and by chance being paired with Dr Merrill – timing is everything. Cancers undeniably changed me, but it also blessed me with very precise timing.
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- Source: https://www.kidneycancer.org/stories/maritza-job-giordano-2/