I have written this story not just to document my experiences as I get treated for this disease, but also to provide information for those unfamiliar with testicular cancer or who have been diagnosed with the same malignancy and who happen to stumble upon this family web site. I highly recommend the Testicular Cancer Resource Center web site for comprehensive information regarding this disease. Men are notorious for not going to the doctor and ignoring health problems. Testicular cancer is very treatable (even in the advanced stages) but early detection is the key to increasing the number of treatment options.
As a child, I had an undescended testicle and knew that I was at increased risk for testicular cancer. My right testicle was significantly smaller than the left. As I got older, I did the usual self-exams, not on a very regular basis but enough to know if something was changing.
While I was showering on a late February morning in 2001 I did a self-exam and I realized that my right testicle was enlarged. This gave me some cause for concern and after I got to work I called my doctor’s office and made an appointment with my family doctor. He was able to see me late that same day. He examined me but did not feel anything unusual. A lump on the testicle tends to touted be a classic symptom of testicular cancer, but there are other presentations including enlargement of a testicle. My doctor told me that he had felt testicular cancer before as a lump on a patient’s testicle and thought there was nothing to worry about. However, as a precaution he sent me for an ultrasound, which I had on the following Monday. After the ultrasound I went to the grocery store to pick up some items, fairly confident that I was just fine. When I got home my wife greeted me with the news that a mass had been detected in my right testicle and that cancer was suspected. My doctor had made an appointment for me with a urologist for the very next day.
