The 43-year-old former Miami Heat player shared earlier this year he had 40 percent of one of his kidneys removed in December 2023 after finding a Stage 1 cancerous tumor
Both Wade’s father and grandfather had battled prostate cancer – a fact that had always kept him worried about his health.
So when he began noticing a slight change in his urination and was suffering from stomach pain three years ago, he decided to go to the doctor even though he felt ‘pretty healthy’.
He said: ‘I talked about just having a slow stream, like sometimes when I would go to the bathroom, my urine would come out little slow.
‘I had some some cramps, some pain, a little bit at times in my stomach that I did not understand. But I didn’t think nothing of it. And so once I finally went in, I was like, “OK, I just want to know everything”‘.
To find the source of his pain, Wade’s physician asked him to undergo an MRI of his kidney, stomach and prostate.
The scan showed a large mass on his kidney that doctors decided to immediately remove surgically – revealing the star athlete had kidney cancer.
Wade told TODAY: ‘[The doctor] expressed to me that it was very early, but they thought they saw something on my kidneys. I didn’t go in for my kidneys. I went in to check what was going on my stomach and my prostate’.
The doctor suggested he undergo further scans speak to a specialist.
His second MRI scan also showed a 1.1 inch sized mass on one of his kidneys – prompting doctors to consider surgery to remove the lesion to prevent it from spreading.
After the surgery, his physician told him his cancer was Stage 1.
The five year survival rate for Stage 1 kidney cancer is 93 percent.
The father-of-four recalled how panicked he felt after hearing he may have cancer and recalled battling with the decision to have a life-altering procedure.
He said: ‘Immediately they try to say, ‘Well, we don’t know if it’s cancerous, but it’s something on there, and you’re a young man, and we just want to make sure that, you obviously are able to live this healthy lifestyle’.
‘So now I’m processing the possibility of surgery on my kidneys. I’ve had it on my knees, I’ve had it on my shoulder, but it’s something that feels a little realer when it’s inside your body.
‘[My doctor said] in the next five or 10 years, if this is cancer, [it can] not only spread through your kidneys, but it [can] also spread through your lungs and eventually to your brain. That’s when I knew that was, like, really serious.’
Follow Us on Facebook – @LadunLiadi; Instagram – @LadunLiadi; Twitter – @LadunLiadi; Youtube – @LadunLiadiTV for updates
Thank God for good health
Sorry