Jerry Ferraro

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting. 



 August 24 2017 started with us thinking we were headed to Virginia Beach VA for a former students wedding.  We had already made plans for Peyton to be taken care of by my in laws and my parents for her weekend of soccer.  We were headed into Panera at the mall when I got a strange call from my PCP.  I had been fighting what I thought was bronchitis for the past 9 weeks and had a CT of the Chest the day before as well as some lab values drawn.



My doctor stated he didn't realize just how sick I was and asked me if I was able to get to an ER to be admitted to the hospital as the CT of the chest had shown a mass growing  on my kidney as well as some abnormal lab values.  So we picked up Peyton from a friends house and gave her to my in laws and headed to West Penn Hospital.  Upon my arrival I was swept into the ER and they started hooking me up to the machines and three medical staff were in my room to draw blood and have an EKG hooked up while prepping  me to get an abdominal CT.  While others were gathering medical info.



1 1/2 hours later the ER doctor came in and told me I had Renal Cell Carcinoma and some swollen lymph nodes.  She told me I would be discharged and start with outpatient therapy.  She told me to contact a local urologist.  



We spoke to some other people who suggested Triangle Urology at AGH.  I met with the top doctor who told me that he and an up and coming doctor would be taking care of me.  When he gave me the name of my surgeon, I informed the doctor that the surgeon was a previous student and player of mine and that I felt like I was in excellent hands.  The head urologist ordered additional CT of my chest with contrast because they believed the cancer may have traveled to my lungs(happy to report that my lungs are clear on CT...yay).



On August 28 We had a face to face meeting with my urology team and got a plan together for an attack.  I am scheduled for surgery to remove my Right kidney and a few lymph nodes on September 5.   After the survey they will send my entire kidney and all lymph nodes recovered to pathology.  The path report can take up to 2 week for results.  Once we get the results we will have a better plan of action.  Please keep me is your thoughts and prayers as I start this journey to fight this horrrible disease.  Thank you and God bless🙏🏻  



We are telling Peyton that I am fighting something and they are going to remove a kidney.  We will not be using the "C" word with her as she only has negative thoughts and we would like her to have positive thoughts.  



Thank you for reading my story.  We have seen God hands at work so many times in the last few days and it gives us peace and the feeling of being surrounded by love.  I will continue to share as we get news.  We all appreciate everything that you all have done for our family.