The Story So Far...

I apologize to everyone for taking so long to get this blog up and going. I really haven’t felt like doing anything lately. This whole “battling cancer” thing leaves me worthless most of the time. Ha, battling cancer, every time I say that I picture myself in medieval armor, sword fighting a big blob of cancerous cells and hacking away at it bit by bit. So far I’m winning.

Anyway, it's been a strange couple of months. About three months ago I found a little mass on my right testicle. The day before I had gone for a long bike ride and nothing in that general area felt right, so I dismissed it. But four days later, it was still there. The next day I attempted to schedule an appointment at my old Primary Care Physician's office (I don’t have insurance and I had not been seen there in years) but was told I would have to wait three weeks. I called a couple of Insta-care facilities and was told that they had no ultrasound machine, which would be needed for a diagnosis. So I went to the ER. Three hours and half a book later, I finally see a Physician's Assistant who tells me he feels nothing, but decides to order an ultrasound just to be safe. About a half an hour later he returns and says that they do not have an ultrasound tech working and the on-call radiologist does not feel confident enough to perform an ultrasound (by this time it's 8:30 p.m., I’ve been there for six hours and had to get my shift at work covered.) He then gives me a number to a clinic in Sugar house and tells me to schedule an appointment with them on Monday. Monday comes around and I leave a message with the clinic; two days later no response. I call again, leave another message and still no response. Finally, frustrated and now feeling some pain in my testicle, I call an old friend who works in radiology at the U and explain my situation. She tells me that most likely the Sugarhouse clinic was not responding because they do not have an ultrasound. What, they couldn't call and tell me that? She gets me scheduled for an ultrasound a week and a half later, by which point I am unable to ride my bike because the pain is so bad.

The ultrasound tech performs a lengthy procedure, sliding what reminds me of a video game controller covered in lubricant over one testicle, then the other, and then repeats. Her silence worries me, but I say nothing. She vanishes for a few minutes and then returns with the Attending Radiologist. Not a Resident, an Attending, which scares the hell out of me. It’s like going to withdraw money from the bank and having the teller return with the bank president; it can’t be good. He takes command of the slippery video game controller, looks around for a few more minutes and tells me to get dressed and to meet him in his office. When I get to his office, he's already scheduled me an appointment with an Urologist for the following week. He tells me not to worry, "It's probably just an infection." Relieved, I go home and try not to think about it.

The following week I go to see the Urologist convinced he'll give me some antibiotics and I'll be on my way. They draw blood and take my vitals. I tell my story to a Nurse, a Nurse Practitioner and finally the Doctor. He looks at my blood work, the ultrasound results then tells me it is cancer and the testicle needs to come out on Monday. It's Friday. "The good news," he says, "is that we caught it early, but we won't know anything more until we get it out and have a look at it."

Monday rolls around and I go in to have my testicle removed. My loyal friend Chris volunteered not only drive me, but to wait until I was done, take care of my prescriptions, drive me home and get me settled(thanks Chris). At this point he was one of the few people who knew about my situation. I figured if pulling out the testicle solved the problem, no one else needed to know. We arrived at the hospital late in the afternoon. They immediately took us back to a room and had me change into a hospital gown (the type that exposes your ass no matter how tight you tie it). Chris and I sat and watched bad reality television in between visits from nurses, anesthesiologists, surgeons, residents, and even hospital case workers suggesting I put together a living will. I’m thirty-one, I’ve never once thought about putting a will together. I suddenly realize the severity of the situation. I could die. Just as I begin to drift into panic, a female resident enters the room, informs me she will be assisting in the surgery and has come to mark the appropriate testicle. She lifts my gown and puts an X on the right side of my scrotum and thigh. She leaves the room and Chris says, “Dude, you just got to third base.” The fear makes me laugh a little harder than I should have, and I feel better. Once again, thanks Chris.

Surgery is a strange experience. The anesthesiologist comes in, sticks a couple of needles in my IV and tells me I’ll feel awesome in about 5…4…3…2…1. I felt great at 3. They wheel me back to the OR. At this point I’m feeling so good that I’m rambling on and on about absolutely everything and nothing. At some point someone puts a mask on me, floods it with gas and I’m out. I think the best way to describe general anesthesia is lost time. It’s similar to accounts from alleged victims of alien abduction. “One minute I was watching Wheel of Fortune on the sofa, and the next I’m waking up on the roof of my trailer with my ass hurtin’ something awful.” Only in my case, one minute I was in the OR and an hour and a half later I’m in the recovery room with the strange feeling that only seconds had passed and a sharp pain in my pelvic region. A nurse is standing at my side telling me to breathe. Was I not breathing? It felt like I was. I take exaggerated breathes to shut her up. Apparently, a machine had been breathing for me for the last ninety minutes and it sometimes takes a while for your body to remember how to breathe on its own. They watch me for a while, and then allow me to get dressed and stumble out into the waiting room to find Chris. At this point I’m not sure if I feel light on my feet because of the drugs or because I’m now one testicle lighter. I decide not to think about it. The drive home is a blur. I think we stopped to fill my prescriptions, but Chris may have dropped me off at home and went on his own. Either way, I made it home okay.

The next week was pretty rough. Highlights include: eating laxatives like candy in an attempt to poo, drug induced hysterical laughing at TV commercials, followed by tears of pain from laughing, cursing and assaulting the television with the remote, followed by more pain while trying to sit up to retrieve said remote, sleeping, more sleeping, and yet more sleeping.

Confident that the source of my cancer had been removed and I was through the worst of it, I go in for a chest/abdomen CT and a follow up visit with my Urologist. “It’s definitely cancer,’ the Doctor informs me, “And it has spread to some lymph nodes in your chest and abdomen and also your lungs.” I was shocked. I thought for sure that the surgery would be the end of my ordeal. I didn't even feel sick. He scheduled me an appointment with an oncologist, assured me that this type of cancer was very treatable and wished me well. For the next couple of days I awaited an apologetic phone call explaining that there had been a mix up and that the CT scan they thought was mine had turned out to be that of a Miles Hobbes or a Mike Nobbs, but that call never came.

A few days later I met with the Oncologist who planned out the chemotherapy and scheduled a port placement. A port is a little device that is placed just under the skin on the right upper chest which taps into a vein and allows medical staff to access my circulatory system without having to place an IV every day. The Oncologist said that because I was young and otherwise healthy, they were going to be very aggressive: four cycles (each cycle lasts three weeks) of Bleomycin, Etoposide and Cisplatin (chemotherapy drugs). I started six weeks ago, and with the exception of an overnight stay in the hospital for an extremely high fever, I’ve been doing pretty well. I’m always tired, but have not lost my appetite and have not been vomiting. I haven’t lost any weight; I actually may have gained weight from inactivity. I’ve lost most of the hair on my head and have taken to shaving the rest of it. My schedule breaks down to this:

Week 1, Mon. - Fri. I have chemotherapy for seven hours a day (I usually sleep for most of the weekend after this week. It’s exhausting.);

Week 2, chemotherapy on Tuesday only for two hours and the same with week three and then it starts over

(The drug they give me on week two and three gives me flu like symptoms that can last from a few hours to a few days.) The Doctors have given me a 65-70% chance of full recovery. I am in Stage III a. I am extremely positive and know that I will get through this thing. It’s very hard to contact me right now. I’m either at the hospital, (where I get no phone reception), sleeping, or some days I feel so horrible that I just don’t feel like talking. So please don’t be offended if it takes me a while to get back to you, it’s nothing personal. I will do my best to keep this blog updated. Thank you all for your support. I hope to see you all soon.