Dwyane Wade, the retired NBA star, recently opened up about his Stage 1 kidney cancer diagnosis, revealing that he felt “pretty healthy” when he went for a checkup, only to realize that the subtle signs his body showed were early warning signals of kidney cancer.
In a recent interview, the 41-year-old retired basketball legend revealed that he went for a check-up due to his father’s history of prostate cancer. Although Wade never suspected anything serious, he shared with his doctor the subtle signs he had been experiencing, including stomach pain and changes in his urination.
“I didn’t think nothing of it. And so once I finally went in, I was like, OK, I just want to know everything,” Wade said in an exclusive interview with Today.
“I talked about just having a slow stream. Sometimes when I would go to the bathroom, my urine would come out little slow. I had some cramps, some pain, a little bit at times in my stomach that I did not understand,” he added.
Doctors performed an MRI to investigate the areas where Wade had been experiencing pain. To his surprise, the scan revealed an unexpected lesion in his kidneys. “I didn’t go in for my kidneys. I went in to check on my stomach and my prostate,” he explained.
A lingering dull ache or pain in the side, abdomen, or lower back is a common sign of kidney cancer. Other symptoms include blood in the urine (hematuria), which may cause it to appear red or rusty, though it can also result from conditions like kidney stones. Additional signs include a lump in the side or lower back, unexplained fever, fatigue, leg swelling, and unintended weight loss.
Wade underwent surgery and doctors then confirmed that the lesion was cancerous. “Thank God that we caught it early. This wasn’t something that was able to grow. It was about 3 centimeters on my kidney,” he said.
After making a quick recovery, Wade is now sharing his story to encourage others, especially men, to take a proactive approach to their health. He urges people to seek medical advice if they notice changes in their bodies.
“When people hear cancer, obviously they think it’s over,” Wade said, but he explained that his experience has been transformative. “A lot of us are not going to check ourselves out if we don’t feel nothing,” he noted, urging men to move past this mindset. “I want us to get over that. I want us to grow from that.”
