Living with Testicular Cancer

In the last part of April 2005 I was having testicular pain and finally decided to go to my doctor. After checking me he wanted me to have a sonogram type test to check my testicles. I could tell by the look on the guy that performed the test that it wasn’t gonna be good. I also knew in my heart that I had testicular cancer Within 20 minutes the doctors office called and told me that I had a tumor on my left teste and needed to get into see the oncologist asap. The doctor was very straight forward and told us about freezing my sperm and all that. Even though we did look into it, the only place that could do this was not impressive to us as far as our feelings and respecting our religious beliefs. We decided to not freeze and take the chance on the radiation.

On my daugthers birthday I went in on May 7th and had the teste removed, then after about 2 weeks of rest I was scheduled to start radiation. I didn’t need chemo because it hadn’t spread and was a seminoma. I had to postpone the radiation due to my 17 yr old cousin being killed in a car accident in Ohio. So after the funeral and everything we got back and I did 3 weeks worth of radiation which was not bad but I had to take off the last week due to my blood platlets dropping.

I have been cancer free for the last 3 yrs and even though I have made the decision to not continue the CT scans which I needed every 4 months for the first two years. I feel great and know it is all gone. The important thing is to not be scared to go to the doctor.