Jeanne Kidd You’ve Reached The Kidds

He thought he was getting old. He thought he had an infection. He thought he had a parasite from rafting the Nile. We named the growth they saw on the scan “Sponge Bob”, because no way could it be anything more serious than any of these options. After all Will is one of the healthiest, kindest most resilient people we all know. Right?

Well, it turns out we missed all the signs, and “Sponge Bob” is in fact “aggressive and dangerous” bladder cancer. At least those where the words the urologist used to inform us that the biopsy results, from the growth Will had removed the week before, is in fact Carcinoma.

The words were so hard to comprehend that Will laughed and said, “In any scenario I never expected those words to come out of your mouth.” 
Wide eyed, and shocked I stopped breathing and cried. How could it be possible that Will Kidd, my kind, funny, adventurous, healthy, energizer bunny husband could have cancer? I never even knew there was such a thing as bladder cancer in someone so young. 

So, as much as I try to deny this each day, it’s time for us to let our friends know, that for the last four months Will has been living with Cancer and has been going through Chemo. We’ve kept this news private, only telling family and a few friends to process everything and plan for what’s coming next.

So, the good news is Will got to keep his beautiful hair. The bad news is he won’t get to keep his bladder. 

The day Will was diagnosed with “aggressive and dangerous”  bladder cancer, was Oct 19th, the day before Will’s 57th birthday, and the conversation went like this: “You have cancer, its aggressive and dangerous, it’s progressed into the muscle wall, you will be starting Chemo next week. You will then be going to Vanderbilt and having your bladder removed…..” That was it; clear, straight forward, cut and dry...”this is your path to be “cancer free”, he said

To Will those words came at us in slow motion, to me it was an all in one swift breath. And as much every day I want this to be different, it’s not going to be. I’ve never in my life been faced with a problem I couldn’t come up with multiple creative solutions to fix, but not this one. No matter how many ways I ask the question, the only path to Will becoming “cancer free” is taking his bladder out. 

Which means this week Will completes his last round of chemo and on March 8, he is having his bladder removed.

So, this is our news. At this moment there is not much more to say than this, but there will be more news coming and we will give updates here. We are grateful to be surround by a good family and close caring friends.