Testicular cancer is the leading cancer affecting 18-35 year olds.

Firstly, I’d like to apologize for some oversharing on this blog. Probably inevitable given the subject matter. A couple weeks ago I felt an unusual lump and scheduled an appointment with a family physician. After the physician agreed it was unusual he scheduled an ultrasound for the following week. My dad then spoke with a urologist with whom he’s friends. The urologist said there was a good chance it was very serious and I needed to see a urologist as soon as possible. The next morning there was a cancellation and I was in the office hours later.

The urologist, Dr. McMurtry, scheduled me for an immediate ultrasound. Unfortunately, the ultrasound was consistent with a non-seminoma testicular cancer. Non-seminoma cancers have an average of diagnosis of the late 20’s, so I was unknowingly at peak risk.

Since non-seminoma tumors are highly malignant, the urologist immediately scheduled surgery to remove the tumor and a CT scan to determine the extent to which it had spread. He also told me there was a very significant chance I was facing a few rounds of chemotherapy. With that said, testicular cancer is now highly curable with a 5 year survival rate above 90%. While I’ve likely got a couple months ahead of me that won’t be great, I’m very lucky to have great odds of being completely cancer-free in the near future.