New Hope Breaking Discrimination During Cancer
- Stage 4 kidney cancer warrior Katie Coleman, 31, took a leap of faith, told her prospective employer about her health condition, and wound up landing the job.
- The CEO and founder of MDisrupt digital health company took to Twitter following her chat with Katie to share how inspired she was by “one of her interview candidates.”
- Katie was diagnosed with kidney cancer after 18 months of symptoms, which were put off by doctors because of her young age. Advocating for your health like Katie is extremely important in order to try to avoid a later stage diagnosis.
Though Katie’s friends warning her to keep her cancer journey to herself during her interviews, the Austin-based warrior decided to do the opposite, and just got hired by MDisrupt, a digital health company.
Read More"Katie was so passionate. She has a way of communicating her empathy towards providers and patients that's different from others," Ruby later shared. "That is exactly the kind of thinking that we need to have as a company: empathy for our users. Katie came in with that."
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Granted, it could have gone an entirely different direction, but Katie trusted her gut, decided to be fully honest about what she is facing, and came out a winner.
Prior to Katie accepting the job, her new boss-to-be even sent her orange flowers, the color for kidney cancer awareness, with a note that said, “Good luck on the scans.”
She took the job. Now, Katie’s success story can hopefully inspire other survivors to follow suit.
Katie’s Kidney Cancer Battle
Like too many cancer patients out there, it took 18 months for Katie to get an accurate diagnosis, as eight separate doctors dismissed that she could have kidney cancer due to her young age.
Then on New Year’s Eve in 2020, Katie was diagnosed with metastatic renal oncocytoma, a rare form of kidney cancer, which had spread to her liver.
She had a 12-centimeter tumor removed from her right kidney and multiple tumors from her liver. She also needed to have some “tiny tumors” burned off because they were to small to see. Katie, a true advocate, courageously asked doctors at the National Cancer Institute to do the procedures because she “knew they were interested in studying rare kidney cancers like hers,” and incredibly, the only team willing to perform the surgery.
Katie, who has now developed a solid presence on social media with her story, is so inspiring in so many ways. Since last fall, she and her medical team have been using the active surveillance method in managing her cancer. Katie gets scans every few months so doctors can keep their eye on some “suspicious spots.”
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The software developer’s story is an important reminder to potential job candidates and employers that her health is her own business, unless she chooses to share it. The fact that she did and had such a positive experience can certainly help move mountains for others out there who may need a dose of Katie’s tenacity.
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"I look at my diagnosis as my greatest strength," Coleman said. The type of tumor she has is almost always benign, but in her case, it wasn't.
Since fall, she has been off treatment and said she is on "active surveillance," monitoring with scans every three months to keep a close eye on a few suspicious spots too small to treat.
"My pet peeves can be summarized by: 1. Cancer. 2. Mansplaining. 3. Missing sauce packets w/takeout."
Understanding Kidney Cancer
Kidney cancer develops when cells in the kidneys, a pair of bean-shaped organs each about the size of a fist, begin to grow out of control. Renal cell carcinoma is the most common type of kidney cancer. In fact, about 9 out of 10 kidney cancers are RCCs.
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It's estimated that about 79,000 new cases of kidney cancer (50,290 in men and 28,710 in women) will be diagnosed in the United States for 2022, so here are some signs of the disease to look out for:
- Blood in the urine (hematuria)
- Low back pain on one side (not caused by injury)
- A mass (lump) on the side or lower back
- Fatigue (tiredness)
- Loss of appetite
- Weight loss not caused by dieting
- Fever that is not caused by an infection and doesn't go away
- Anemia (low red blood cell counts)
According to UCLA Health, kidney cancer can metastasize, or spread, to any part of the body through the blood or lymphatic system. When that happens, the first signs of cancer may not be specific to your kidneys.
Symptoms of metastatic kidney cancer (like what Katie is fighting) may cause symptoms in the newly affected areas of the body including:
- The lungs, causing cough and shortness of breath
- The bones, resulting in bone pain or fracture
- The brain, presenting as headaches, confusion or seizures
"Traditionally, kidney cancer was diagnosed in people coming in with blood in the urine, a mass (in the) belly that was big enough that you could feel, or pain on that side," Dr. Geoffrey Sonn, a urologic oncologist with Stanford Hospital and Clinics, previously told SurvivorNet.
"More recently because of the great increase in the use of imaging with ultrasound, CAT scans, MRI most kidney cancers (are) diagnosed incidentally, meaning a scan is done for another reason," he added.
Dr. Sonn said that doctors finding a mass seen on imaging done for another reason is "the most common presentation" of the disease. Some patients without symptoms might discover their cancer through scans done for unrelated reasons.
"For localized kidney cancer, for relatively small masses that have not metastasized, most often patients feel nothing, and this is found on a scan done for another reason," he said.
"For larger masses of the kidney they may have pain on that side, they may see blood in the urine or a routine urine test may show a microscopic amount of blood in the urine that's not enough to be seen visually but still will prompt further testing with imaging that shows the kidney cancer."
You should always bring up any changes to your health immediately with your doctors before symptoms get worse.
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