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I have refrained from blogging recently because…well, I have not been inspired to write too much. Most of my energy has been focused on what I would do with my new rare disease–testicular cancer. Apparently I am a magnet for rare things; when I was ten I had nodular faciitis–a rare growth found deep in your skin (mine was in my neck and had fingers that ran down my shoulder). As for testicular cancer, there are only 8000 cases a year in the US. With a population of 300 million, divide roughly by two to not count the women, thats 150 million, do some long division and move the decimal, .0053% of the male population gets ball cancer. Now if we look at just 15-34 year olds–when most men develop nut cancer–we cut the potential population to about 84 million–US Census data says that us 15-34 year olds make up about 28% of the population–and the percentage goes to .0095%. Dirty word, those are small numbers. If these rare things come in threes, then I will win the lotto soon–this would be exceedingly rare since I have never purchased a lotto ticket.
Those of you interested in some fun techno-medical jargon I will fill you in on my TC diagnosis. I had a pure seminoma tumor confined to my testicle with no apparent lymphovascular invasion. My bHCG–some level they measure for being prego and other things, I think it has the word gonad in it somewhere–was 7 before my orchiectomy–nut removal–and now is less than 2. My CT scan came back clean. My offical staging would be Seminoma IS–tumor just in the ball with some elevated blood levels. Seminoma tumors respond very well to treatment and this left me with a lot of options to pick–all of them have about a 98% cure rate even with recurrence.
The first is surveillance: check my levels and do CT scans to see if it comes back. This would have a corresponding cure rate of about 80%. Second, I could do radiation; the cure rate jumps to about 98% but carries very small chances of developing secondary tumors after many years. Thirdly, and this is what I have chosen to do, I could do 2 courses of adjunctive carboplatin, a form of chemotherapy; this boosts the cure rate to 98% as well. This form of chemo is very mild and the dose is small comparatively to other forms of chemo. I will go to the doctor Thursday and get an IV infusion of the stuff for about a half hour and then I am done. I may get some flu like systems, nausea, and fatigue. The doctor thinks I will not even miss school. The second treatment will be on May 22nd; and that is it for treatment.
On a side note, my best friend from high school and I have always wanted to be motivational speakers; we were the emcees for the High-5 puppet shows at our school. High-5 was a teen group against drugs et al. After our gig with High-5, we could not think of anything particularly motivating to talk about with the exception of the need for owning two comfortable couches–this is a story I will revisit later, for now you will have to be in suspense knowing the story will not be as interesting to you as it is to me. I think it may be time for Brad and Marcus to dust of the mics and start writing uncomfortable testicle puns… actually I just wanted to see what uncomfortable testicle puns looked like typed out. Maybe we should get a tandem bike to ride, or a tandem unicycle… yeah the unicycle is more symbolic. Well that’s is all my ideas for now. If you want to make a suggestion, feel free to put them in the comments.
While orchiectomy looks like a term from Lord of the Rings (removal of orcs) it is actually the removal of the orchis (that is Greek for testicle.) I am the proud owner of three and half inch scar from my orchiectomy. I had a strange sensation in my testicle and had the urologist take a look and after a scrotal ultrasound, it was decided that it needed to go. I feel pretty good and we should get the pathology back Friday or Monday. It seems like we caught it early, but we won’t know until the pathology comes back. Thanks to all of the people praying for me and my family; God has given me tremendous peace about this and I feel like we are going to be okay in the end. It is just the waiting that is no fun…and the body part removal. As I know more I will post. God bless. I shiny apple goes to the best one testicle joke in the comments (Tanya may already be in the lead.)
