A routine physical turned out to be anything but for Marge Wrabel. “My primary care physician found a little blood in my urine and then some tiny kidney stones and referred me to Dr. Carl Capelouto at Georgia Urology.
He wasn’t worried about the stones – they’d probably pass, but he saw something else that concerned him. A CT scan showed I had a tumor in my left kidney, and it was cancerous,” she explained.
“Dr. Capelouto reassured me that they’d caught it so very early – it was tiny. He picked up the phone and called Dr. Froylan Gonzalez right then because he thought I was an ideal candidate for da Vinci robotic surgery.
“My husband and I went to meet Dr. Gonzalez and he talked us through the options. With robotic surgery, only part of my kidney would need to be removed – not the entire thing. George and I had a vacation to Greece planned for early June, and Dr. Gonzalez told me to go. We scheduled the surgery for right after we got home.
“And it went so smoothly! I had a third of my kidney removed and I only needed an overnight stay. My recovery was very quick – I had next to no pain and only tiny incisions that look like a scratch! I was up and around after just a few days.
“Thank goodness for those kidney stones!"