My Brush With the C Word

I'm not sure what triggered this, maybe it was someone posting on Facebook about doing a walk for breast cancer or something like that. Whatever it was, it prompted me to share my own story about cancer.

I would like to start with a disclaimer. I do not talk much about this and have very rarely shared this chapter of my past because to be perfectly honest I feel like I didn't really have cancer. It was caught very very early and there have never been any signs of a return. In fact it was caught and removed before I even knew I had it for sure. So in my mind I didn't really have it. Denial on my part? You decide.

This happened when I was 26 years old. So it was back in olden times. You know pre-cell phones, pre-computers, pre-voicemail, maybe even pre-fax machines.

Oh! Also, there is going to be some TMI here. So gird your loins!

One day, I was at the gym on the rowing machine. I looked down and noticed that my right testicle was hanging out of my shorts. What!? That's weird. I tucked it back in and noticed that it feel a little heavier than normal. I should also tell you at this point (for those of you who don't know me personally), that I am a very modest person. In fact, I am downright conservative. I don't even get naked in the gym locker room. So for this to happen to me was shocking and embarrassing. I immediately looked around to see if anyone saw anything.

As time passed, I would occasionally notice that the heft or weight seemed to grow. It was odd, but I thought it would pass. Nothing else seemed to be wrong.  Then one morning I woke up and stood to get out of bed and it hurt. The movement of getting up (I slept on a fold-out futon-sofa at the time so I was pretty close to the floor). The effort to get up from the floor hurt my balls. I went to work.

At the time I was an assistant buyer for an old school downtown department store in Schenectady, New York. The last of its kind in the Tri-Cities. The building was old and was in fact two old buildings that had been connected, the actual department store and the offices were two separate buildings that had been connected. The floors were not even so no matter where you went from one building to the other, you had to climb stairs. Climbing the stairs was extremely painful. Getting up from my chair was extremely painful. Standing, sitting climbing stairs. It all hurt. I went to the doctor.

It was a new doctor, I just joined this HMO and it was my first visit. He checked me out, took blood samples, and gave me a prescription for something that reduce the inflammation on testicle.  He also referred me to a urology specialist at another one of their offices. The medication did reduce the swelling. I was in less pain, but it wasn't going away.

I went to the urologist. More blood was drawn (I was becoming a pro at the blood drawing). My testicles were examined some more. (Not an easy thing for me. I was not crazy about someone touching my balls). He sent me to have a sonogram...on my balls. Yes, just a sonogram like pregnant women have to see their baby. Except mine was on my balls. Cold gel and paddles on my balls executed by a woman. I am definitely out of my comfort zone here. I mean at this point (age 26) I have only ever been naked in front of another human being on two occasions.

Back to the urologist. Nothing found on the sonogram, the swelling has gone down from the medication. Worst case scenario it could be a malignant tumor that will need to be removed. All seems good, but he can't be positive. Best to have a second opinion. He refers me to the head of urology at Albany Medical Center. I make an appointment for a Friday morning before I go into work.

First thing Friday morning, I go to Albany Med for my appointment. The head of urology comes into the examining room with the resident assigned to his department. They have me strip down (This again!)  They look. They touch. And then, the only way to know for sure what that lump is, is to go under the knife and get inside so we can see. And you cannot wait. This must be done as soon as possible in case it is in fact malignant. Let's set you up for surgery for Monday morning.

I go back to the waiting area to sing all the paperwork. I'm reading through. I see something that I wasn't clear on in the exam room. I ask the nurse. She can't answer. So she gets the doctor and I go back in the exam room to ask him. Its says if you find a tumor then you will remove the whole thing right then and there. I thought you were just going to go in look, and then close me up and we would discuss later. No, if its a tumor, it has to come out right away. Not just the tumor folks, the whole testicle. It goes.

I sign the papers, I got to work. I tell my boss and I break down in tears as its coming out of me. Suddenly its real. That night I have dinner at my parent's house for my sister Wendy's birthday. Both my sisters already know that something has been up with me because I have told them. I tell my father when I arrive. He says we will wait and tell my mother after dinner and my sisters have left. We tell her together, I can't really get it out. They insist on me staying with them the night before surgery so they can take me to the hospital and then I can recuperate at their house after.

Sunday, I go to the hospital to fill out all the paper work and then Monday morning I go in for same day surgery and spend the night Monday night. That's how it worked back then. Nowadays, it truly is same-day, in and out. We go to the hospital in the wee hours of the morn on Monday. There are also convicts from Albany County Jail being wheeled in for surgery changed to their gurneys. Oh yeah!

I'm in prep before being wheeled into the OR, at which point the doctor asks if I want a prosthetic if the testicle needs to be removed. I am not prepared for this. In my mind, I do not have cancer. Its not worst case scenario. I've just got some sort of swelling. I'm still in denial.

I wake up after surgery in post-op. They prop me up, give me some apple juice. The nurse informs me that it was a tumor and it has been removed. There is an intern on staff who had testicular cancer as well. If I'd like he can stop by and talk to me. Sure, why not? Now funny thing is, I was told in advance that I would not remember much about post-op if at all. I remember everything! LOL

I am brought up to my room. I cannot bring myself to look at myself below the waist let alone touch it. I know that there is a dressing on it. That's all. I'm shown how to use a pillow as a brace so to speak so I can sit up or get up. I'm scared to death that any movement I make will cause the stitches to rip. I lay perfectly still.

My parents are both there. The doctor comes in and explains that it was a malignant tumor and the whole thing has been removed. I am to spend the night in the hospital and in the morning before I leave they will run an MRI to make sure that the cancer has not spread and I am clean.

I get a roommate. A much older man on all kinds of machines. What am I dioxin here with him? He's really sick or hurt. He belongs there. Not me. I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with me. I feel guilty being in the same room with him.

The doctor asks if I have been up yet to go to the bathroom. Are you kidding me? What I my stitches split open and my insides spill all over the floor? He says there's no reason why I can't. There is a bottle on the nightstand for me to use for relieving myself. Lovely. I have to go. My dad buzzes the nurse. She comes in. We explain the doctor said I can get up and walk to the bathroom. She disagrees, but alright lets give it a try. She and my dad, grab me on either side and proper me up. I put one foot on the floor and...bam! Nope. Not going to happen.  I start to pas out. They ease me back into bed. I guess I'll have to use the bottle on the nightstand.

My sisters have both just shown up as I'm about to pee into the bottle in my bed. Nice! My dad escorts them out and shuts the door. He stays. Um. You need to go too. He draws the curtain around the bed so I can have some privacy. In those days, I was also the sort who couldn't pee in a public restroom if there were others join there. No matter how bad I had to go!

I do my business. My sisters come in. I buzz for the nurse to pick up the bottle filled with my urine which is now sitting on the nightstand as my sisters come into visit me. At one point, my sister Debbie is looking rather awkwardly at the bottle full of urine on the nightstand. She is sitting right next to it. I buzz again for the nurse.

At one point the doctor comes around for rounds again when I am alone, this time with all the interns. He comes in and pull back the sheets and while up my hospital gown so I am now exposed to all the interns. Hello! Nice to meet you! Guess I need to get over my modestly at this point.

The next day, I get my MRI and I go home with my parents. I'm still saying to myself. I didn't have cancer. I mean seriously. I didn't find out I had a tumor until was removed. So I didn't really have cancer.

My parent put me up in my sister Debbie's old room. They put in an air conditioner. Move the TV from the family room in along with a VCR and rent me movies to watch. They buy me food. My sisters come to visit, one of our neighbors. But that's about it. I hadn't told anyone about this so no one knows and I have no visitors. After a day I work up enough strength to walk down the hall to sponge bathe myself sitting on the toilet. After about five days I start going outside for walks.

After a week, I go into the oncologist and set up a schedule for radiation treatments. Every Monday through Friday, I have to go back for treatments. The humiliation has not ended. Because now every day, I have strip down from the waist down, get on a table, wrap a lead band around my balls to protect them from radiation and then shove them inside a protective mold. The radiation is aimed at a square area (yes they even marked the quadrant on my pelvic area), which includes my private parts. And they need to be protected. In fact, before we started I was asked if I wanted save some sperm for the future in case I wanted to have kids. I couldn't even think about that stuff. At age 26 I had only dated someone about a year earlier and only for a couple months and we never had sex. I was still pretty much a virgin and being a closeted gay, I thought well I don't know. How does that work? So, no. I passed.

But oh, having to do that every day.  It was not easy for me, but I did get over my modesty. I mean it seemed like the whole world had seen me with my pants down now.

So that was it. My brush with the Big C. That was over 27 years ago. There's been no recurrence. And I still kind of feel like I didn't really have it. I mean people go through so much worse. I didn't go through anything really. I found a lump. It was removed. I had some radiation. End of story.

Cut to a few months later, my parents were initially proud of the way I handled the whole thing. But then, they became concerned that maybe I don't handle it so well. I never talked about it. I acted as if it didn't happen. But that was my way of dealing with it. I didn't know what it was until after the surgery. So until that point , I was convinced that it wasn't. And then after, I felt like well its gone. So its over. No point in dwelling on it. Just move on.

What do you think? Do you have cancer stories to share?  I'd like to hear about yours. Leave comments in the Comments section.