Reply #9: It was april of 1999.

[tedoll78]

I'd began to notice some pain coming from my groin on the left side. It was deep, consistent, and dull. I also noticed that my left testicle was looking a bit bigger.

A visit to the student health services on campus (University of Mississippi) yielded nothing. The doc there recommended that I go to a urologist off-campus. So I set an appointment and went two days later. Meanwhile, the pain was getting to the point where it was becoming difficult to walk.

The urologist appointment was a bust. Here was this small-town doc who was older than dirt who took one look at me and told me that I had a scrotal infection. He took some urine, scribbled some prescriptions for antibiotics and antiinflammatories, and sent me on my merry way.

I'd suspected that it was testicular cancer, having spent a few restless, lonely nights alone reading about it online, comparing my symptoms, etc. But I decided to give the pills a shot. One week later, with my nipples now going crazy because of hormones (chafing against my t-shirt from simple walking motion), I found another urologist in the yellow pages and decided to go to him.

I went and told him my tale. He took one look at me, asked about my family history (chock-full of cancer.. all types, all ages..), and told me to get my ass home to New Orleans ASAP, where my parents' insurance would cover my care.

48 hours later, I had packed my life into my car and told my friends where I was going. At this point I was failing in chemical engineering school (BOOORING!), so there was no point in telling my teachers.. I'd change majors to PolySci when I got back anyway. So I made the drive to New Orleans.

My arrival home surprised my parents. They thought I was in Oxford studying for finals. I sat them down and told them what I and the doc thought was going on. My mom, who'd lost both of her parents by the time she was 21, was a basket case. My dad, for the first time in my life, cried like a baby in front of me. Looking back, I can't believe it, but I was the strong one. I was the one telling them not to cry, that I had likely caught it early, that everything would turn-out fine. That was a weird day.

One day later, I had my appointment with the endocrinologist, who had blood taken and an ultrasound ordered. The ultrasound was freaky. Ultrasound goo applied to my scrotum by this strange woman? Ewwww.. But it worked in confirming everything. The blood tests did as well - my protein levels were sky-high - consistent with cancer. So the surgery date was set.

I hardly remember anything from the surgery. I do remember choosing to have an epidural (numbed from the waist down) rather than general anesthetic. That left the upper half of me awake for the surgery. Since this was the first time I'd tried any hard drugs, I was loopy as all hell going into the operating room. I was drunkenly "singing" a Mardi Gras song as the nurses wheeled me into the OR - and I could tell that they were really entertained by it, lol.. I also remember seeing the blue curtain in front of my face so that I couldn't see the operation. There was a radio in the OR that I sang-along with - until the surgeon got tired of hearing me sing. The last thing I remember was the doc asking the anesthesiologist to knock me out.. :P

Going home after the surgery was weird. I was on demerol - what a drug! When I got home, I went straight to bed to recover. My parents' dog, Holly - a small mini dachshaund - was trying to climb into bed with me, jumping and jumping at the side of the bed. It was then that I had the best hallucination of my life - Holly blowing a red latex balloon from her butt and then doing a backflip in celebration of her "achievement." She was so proud of that balloon! :)

After recovering from that surgery, the doctor recommended one more surgery - this one much more serious - a retroperitoneal lymph node dissection. They'd cut me from sternum to just below my umbilicus and remove some lymph nodes to see if the cancer had reached there. I agreed, wanting to take no chances. So it was back under the knife again.

This surgery was no fun compared to the last one. I was in the hospital for a week. It hurt to laugh. Sitting up in bed hurt. The smell of any food made me want to vomit. I lost a ton of weight that week. And I didn't sleep well at all; the nurses kept coming in to take my vitals. Hmph.

I don't remember much else of that hospital stay. But I do remember reacting to the morphine. At first, I just twitched a bit. But then the twitching got worse, and my body seemed to want to curl into a ball. I asked my mom to go get the nurse. She told me to wait a bit, to calm down. I then yelled at her: "GO GET THE NURSE! NOW!" She ran off and got the nurse, who gave me some sort of relaxant. It was a pretty nasty reaction. They got me off of that crap right away, switching to demerol. When I woke-up, my parents and aunt and uncle were there. The first thing I remembered was yelling at my mom. With this, I began to bawl like a baby.. "I.. yelled.. at.. my.. momma!" They just laughed at me, but I really did feel bad for yelling at her.

The lymph nodes came out clean. The following blood tests did too. So did the CT scan after that. I spent the rest of the summer with my parents in New Orleans, with the doctor's advice that I get periodic blood tests and CT scans.. surveillance, he called it.

The whole episode taught my family a lesson: to take care of themselves. With our family's history of cancer being quite voluminous, I had always hounded them to eat better and exercise. What irony that I would be the one to get the Big C! But after this, Mom and Dad began to take my advice to heart. They eat a LOT better now, and they exercise 6 days of the week. If this is what I get from the whole ordeal, it was a damn good trade.. I want my parents around and healthy for as long as possible.

It was probably one of the better summers of my life. It was my first extended time home from college in a while. I realized how much I miss and love my parents. I also realized that it was time to change majors. And, funny thing, this was also my introduction to diagnostic medical imaging. Now, five years later, I'm in school again, about to finish a program in radiography.

That is, if I can get this studying done. Wow, have I typed a lot! Hope you enjoyed:D