Several months of debilitating immunotherapy followed. I started off injecting myself in the lower abdomen but this soon became too difficult as the side effects began to overwhelm me – high fever and chills, nausea, vomiting, stomach discomfort, fatigue, etc. - I was down five kilos, a precious lot for an already thin frame, and it was hard finding that silver lining.

After the treatment I recovered quickly and felt well. I started doing qigong ("chi-kung") and went back to light work.  For over a year my scans were clear. Prospects looked good. Then, a routine check in December 2002 revealed a nodule in each lung. Sigh...

It is not a widely-known fact that when cancer spreads or "metastasizes", it is the cells of the primary tumour that physically travel via the lymph or blood vessels to another location, and start to multiply there.  Thus, in my case, my kidney cells had metastasized to the lungs....it is still kidney cancer, in the lungs, and not lung cancer.  The nature and treatment of the two organ cancers are completely different.