Hi Jason and a warm welcome to our forum, 

I am sorry to hear you have just been diagnosed with kidney cancer and I completely understand why you found it upsetting to be told the news on the phone and not face to face. Sometimes we just need that personal touch and direct interaction rather than just hearing a voice on the phone especially when given a cancer diagnosis. I hope that you find out all the details soon as to whether you will have a kidney partially removed or full removal. Our website has useful information on surgery to remove part or all of your kidney - also known as the partial or radical nephrectomy and we also have a whole section on surgery for kidney cancer. If you have any questions or would like to talk to one of our cancer nurses about anything, don't hesitate to give them a call on this free number 0808 800 4040 - their helpline is open Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm. 

It's difficult to deal with the news of a cancer diagnosis and these early days after the shock of the diagnosis are really hard as it's a time when there is still a lot of uncertainty hovering over your head and when you feel totally alone with your diagnosis. Talking to others here on the forum who have been through all this before, who have had a kidney cancer diagnosis and have now recovered from the surgery can be helpful and I will mention a few recent threads here on Cancer Chat from members who have been diagnosed with kidney cancer recently. For example, Lynnie52 posted this kidney cancer thread and had a nephrectomy in January and this member commented last month on how lonely they felt at the time. Botoph  also posted this thread about their stage 2 kidney cancer diagnosis around Christmas time and you can read mummybern 's kidney cancer story about being told just like you over the phone that the mass found on the kidney was cancerous.  Don't hesitate to reply to any of those threads I have mentioned and I hope that you will hear from others here who have been diagnosed with kidney cancer and that they will be able to give you comforting words based on their personal experiences. 

Wishing you the best of luck for the surgery and I hope you make a quick recovery,

Lucie, Cancer Chat Moderator