Dear Testicular Cancer

It’s roughly one week since the first dosis of paraplatin. All the sideffects seem to be over. It took about seven days for the constipation to disappear. The muscle pain vanished after three days. I was tired for roughly one day. No nausea whatsoever. But yes a major constipation.

I got my blood checked and everything looks fine. I start to feel like a human being again. Walking is also going practically like before. I am still trying to walk carefully but I didn’t feel anything major in about 2 weeks and I have walked about 3 or 4 kilometers a day.

Sperm Banks. I was always curious about these places. The one I went to looked like this. “Would you like to watch some DVDs?” the nurse kindly asked me.

They made me release my potential future babies into a plastic cup with my name on it. I needed the help of my girlfriend, the DVDs and the posters on the wall didnt really do it for me. I think I could offer them my pornography consulting services to create a more inspiring atmosphere in there. Although they probably don’t want the people to enjoy themselves too much, or else they’d be lining up around the block. So I guess it requires the right balance between hospital and porn. Tricky.

I called them a few hours later. Looks like I’m fertile. My boys can swimm!!!

I signed up with this online support group:

TC NET Support

I have received great help and mental support from them. I highly recommend signing up (free) and telling your story.

I have met with the radiotherapy specialist. The options for post surgery treatments of testicular cancer are all a little confusing and irritating right now. Every option seems to affect the probability of a reoccurence of the tumor and at the same time also the probability of causing another, secondary type of cancer further down the road (10-15 years from now). I will post more once my clears up a little and I have done more research.

About one week after the operation my urologist set up a ct-scan meeting for me. The ct-scan takes x-ray slices of the body and allows the radiologists to examine the lymph glands which could have been affected by the tumor. The seminoma tumor spreads almost exclusively through the lymph system.

The main purpose of the ct-scan after the operation is to determine the amount of spreading of the tumor across the body, this is referred to as staging.

The ct-scan procedure took about 10 minutes total. I lied down on the platform, the nurse hooks my arm up to some contrast liquid which allows the ct-scanner to highlight the blood and the lymph system. Then the platform goes back and forth about 4 times and a recorded voice tells me when to start and stop breathing. At one point the voice says: “… and now the contrast will give you a warm feeling across your body.” I felt the liquid pumping through my entire blood system in about twenty seconds… what an uncomfortable and unexpected feeling. I guess I was not prepared for it even though they have explained it to me.

My scan was clean! No apparent spreads visible. Yes! The doctor said that I was lucky. Loosing a testicle is not the most pleasant thing in the world, but if he had to pick a tumor he’d probably pick mine.

So I am officially a seminoma stage I patient.

One week later I was at the hospital. No food 12 hours and no drinking 6 hours before the operation (Orchiectomy).

7am: Admission to hospital
8am: Switching to hospital clothes
9am: Shaving all pubical hair
12am: Operation

I don’t recall the moment of waking up, but I felt relieved. The nurse said that everything went well. I carefully explored my genitals. One testicle only. It felt a little numb on the right side around the groins and in the leg.

A couple of hours later the doctor came by and said it was indeed a seminoma as expected. He asked whether I was ok with the look of the scrotum like this or whether I’d wanted an artificial replacement for the right testicle? I decided against it because I thought it didn’t look too strange and I have heard about possible sideffects of implants in general:

“[...] The artificial testicle has no function and there have been concerns with some of the artificial testicles made of silicone (because the silicone may leak from the testicle into the rest of the body). [...]“

But yes by now it honestly is hard to tell how many balls are floating around in that little sack. I am definitely not worried about the look at this point.

The first couple of nights past the operation were a little painful, nothing major though. Most of the pain was caused by laughing or caughing. I took painkillers for about a week. I was able to walk again after 2 days. The third day I was released from the hospital.

On the way to our favorite sunday brunch place I felt a sudden sharp pain in my groins. It started to sting in the groins but also in the legs and the lower part of the stomach when I was walking. Needless to say that the eggs benedict were not quite the right medicine at that moment. We took a cab back home and I lay down to take a rest.

The next thing I remember are three doctors checking out my balls at 11pm in a crowded emergency room. Their first concern was that I was suffering from testicular torsion, in which case immediate surgery would have been necessary. A nurse rolled me on a wheelchair into another department where a young doctor took a sonogram of my scrotum. In retrospect I realize that this doctor must have been very unexperienced. It took him almost 30 minutes to do the sonogram and even after all that time he still was not quite able to give me a convincing diagnosis. I just saw him pulling a disgusted face when he looked at the sonogram image. “You picked up one nasty infection” , he said but he didn’t know what it was. I was very irritated and felt somewhat insulted.

After almost 10 hours in the emergency room the main physician subscribed me a dose of antibiotics and a painful shot of Ceftriaxone in the butt. The diagnosis: Orchitis and Epididymitis. “Nothing to be worried about,… I see it all the time here,… follow up on it with your doctor in 4 weeks.”

I bought the medicine at a CVS nearby. I took the first one later that day. The hospital called again and said it might be a little more severe. They prescribed me stronger antibiotics. 10 Days of Doxycyclone, 2 pills a day.

I was less worried than before but the doctors seemed somewhat incompetent. I figure I’ll wait a could of days and see how things progress with the medicine.