A father and Air Force recruiter details his journey at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute with medullary kidney cancer - a rare cancer disproportionately affecting African Americans.
Air Force Recruiter Lamar Valentina says cancer was not on his radar screen. I had never dealt with it in my family or myself up until September of 2019. Lamar was 35 years old and at first I thought he was suffering from some sort of exercise or sports-related injury, severe back pain in my lower back on my left side. The pain got so bad. He went to the emergency room undergoing multiple tests. At first he was told he had lung cancer and I'm in the Air Force, I'm active physically fit, I work out, I don't smoke and I'm like, I don't know how this happened. But then further tests showed he had something extremely rare called medal larry renal cell carcinoma, a type of kidney cancer only affecting a handful of people each year. It's kidney cancer, but it doesn't call any of the rules. Lamar started traveling from new york to Dana Farber Cancer Institute to see Dr Bradley McGregor who studies rare kidney cancers. Dr MacGregor said recent advances in kidney cancer don't seem to work on this form of the disease, which disproportionately affects african americans with the sickle cell trait Majal arenas are carcinoma will often spread when the tumors are very small. So it tends to be a very aggressive cancer with potential for spread very early in the disease course. Lamar immediately started chemotherapy and eventually underwent surgery. His tumor shrunk and he began feeling better once again able to enjoy sports with his son and recently even getting to throw out a first pitch at a boston red Sox game. he says his experience at Dana Farber exemplifies a lesson he often shares with his son that there's no I in team, I've had nothing but amazing experiences identify arbor and it's not because of one person from when I walk in the building, so when I get pre screened for Covid, so when I go to the second floor and do lab work and meeting with the nurses that take my vitals and a meeting with Dr MacGregor, like it's a, it's a whole team effort that's combined, that creates, uh, a wonderful experience for bad situation.
