Living with Testicular Cancer

I felt a heaviness in my left testicle for about a week. No pain really but it just didn’t feel right. My wife, an R.N. insisted that I visit my doctor. He checked it out and said I don’t think it’s anything. I said “Doc it just isn’t right” then he got a bright light and put it behind the testicle. The next thing I know he is on the phone arraging an ultrasound of the testicles at a local hospital. I go to the hospital and of course it had to be two ladies that performed the ultrasound. They asked me to get dressed and wait in the waiting room. I was out there quite a while, so I figure something must be wrong. When they came out, they toldl me that I had an appointment with a urologist in 15 minutes.

I drove to the urologist and get another testicle examination at which time he informs me that I have to have the left testicle removed, it is probably cancer. He explains the procedure and sends me to someone to make the arrangements to schedule surgery. By the time I get home my wife is panicing because I have been gone so long. The surgery was a couple of weeks later, it went well and wasn’t too painful.

A few weeks after that I had about 6 weeks of abdominal radiation therapy. It was very nauseating. That was over 5 years ago and I have had a clean bill of health since. I get an annual CT scan, see a urologist every six months and have a physical by my doctor every year. I also discovered that the radiation damaged my remaining testicle’s ability to produce testerone, so I am on androgel(testosterone) which is a gel that you apply to your shoulders daily. All is going well. Check you balls regularly and thoroughly.