It's nothing serious, just took a blow to the family jewels

November 14, 1987. It was the day my father lost his battle with colon cancer. He was only 38 years old. As a kid I would have people tell me, 'Wow, 38 years old. That is so young'. As a ten year old I would reply "I don't know, 38 seems pretty old to me". Today I realize just how young he really was. Now, as a 31 year old recently diagnosed with Testicular Cancer, I am brought to a full realization of what it means to be a young man dealing with cancer.

Background: I have always been healthy and active. I have probably never called in sick more than 2 days in my entire life. (That does not include a couple of days I may have called in sick but was spotted on the golf course later that day). In the last couple of years I have put an even greater emphasis on living a healthy lifestyle. I dropped 30 pounds of body weight and even added a little bit of muscle. I took up activities such as hiking, snowshoeing, and backcountry skiing. In the last year I have missed very few days in the gym... that's where this story becomes interesting....

'The Incident': On a very ordinary day sometime in early August I left work and went to the gym. It must have been a Tuesday because I was dreading a gruelling legs workout. I loaded a couple of plates on to the end of a barbell preparing to start my workout with some deadlifts. I needed a couple of clamps to put on the end of the barbell to keep the weights on tight. I had one of the small, maybe a pound, plastic clamps in my hand. As I was walking around the gym bouncing the clamp around in my hand casually looking for a second clamp, I bobbled the clamp and it struck me solidly, yet with minimal contact, in the right testicle. Although it hit with minimal force it brought me to my knees in the most agonizing pain I had ever felt there. I had to lay down on a bench for 5 minutes before I could even stand up. After ten minutes of rest I completed half of a workout before giving up. Needless to say it was sore for a good week.... other than that I really didn't think much of it.

A few weeks later I started to notice that it was somewhat enlarged. It really wasn't sore, just bigger. No biggie I thought, it's probably just swollen. The weeks started passing by and no change. If anything it was possibly getting bigger. I told a few people about it and of course they advised me to have it checked out asap. 'Nah, its just a little swollen, I took a pretty good blow there a few weeks ago and it just needs some time to heal'. After about 7 weeks I started getting a little nervous. Finally I acquiesced and called the doctor. It was Friday, October 2nd. I would find out later that it was Oct 2nd, 1996 that Lance Armstrong was told, 'you have cancer.'

I was able to get an appointment that morning. The nurse took me to a room and told me that the doctor was working with a student and was wondering if I would mind if the student sat in. I responded a little tentatively, 'ummm, maybe not this time'. Dr. Eberhard came in shortly after and took a look. After giving him the background information he was certain it was nothing much and that it generally just takes some time to heal. However, after giving the physical exam he was certain that that wasn't the case. He didn't seem too concerned, however, he scheduled me an ultrascan that afternoon. It still hadn't hit me that anything could be seriously wrong. That afternoon I went to another facility and a female technician performed an ultrascan. Although a little awkward, I still wasn't overly concerned. Than something happened. The technician said, 'Ok, I am all finished. Sometimes the site specialist likes to come in and take a look in person, I'll be right back.' Now, I am not an expert in these kind of matters, however, I know enough to know that when they have to bring in someone else to take a look, something is wrong. An older man entered the room and took a look. He evaluated the images for no more than ten seconds, then turned to me and said, 'I think its a tumor.' I was shocked. All I could respond with was, 'what does that mean?' He didn't answer my question. He said he was not in a position to consult. I responded by asking if that meant I have cancer. He said, 'yeah, I think so, like what Lance Armstrong had.'

Losing a parent at an early age in life is not easy. I was lucky to have the most amazing mother on the planet. She provided everything I ever needed. I have always felt lucky. I have a great family, I have always had great friends. I was successful in college and have been very fortunate in my career. It almost seems as though I have been invincible. Whenever something bad has happened, something better happens shortly after and I come away the better. Hearing the words 'you have cancer' creates a feeling of vincible-ness that strikes you at your core.

I changed back into my clothes and was immediately on the phone with my doctor. It was 5:00 on a Friday night. We discussed the results of the ultrascan and he was determined to get things moving. He was able to schedule me an appointment at 7:00 a.m. Monday morning with a urolgist. I would have to have my blood drawn to look for tumor markers and a chest x-ray to look for tumors in my chest before Monday morning. We were able to find places to have these done on Saturday.

Monday morning I met with the Urologist, Dr. Lisa Stout. She reviewed the ultrascan and performed a physical exam. 'It's a tumor and we got to get it out right away. Let's see if we can get something scheduled for tomorrow.' Wow, just that fast. The soonest we could get it done was that Friday. It was that fast, in a matter of 7 days we would go from identifying a tumor to having a radical inguinal orchiectomy performed. This is where they make an incision just below the belt line and remove the testicle. I asked her how often testicular tumors are malignant, her response, 'almost always.' That was not promising.

I spent the next few days researching testicular cancer. The information was optimistic. Turns out TC is curable about 95% of the time. In some cases the only treatment that is necessary is the removal of the cancerous testicle. Much of it depends on the results from the pathology report that would be available a week or so after the surgery. The initial chest x-ray was negative but the blood test did show some minor elevated tumor markers.