In late January of this year we moved into a new house and in the process my husband had to move a rather heavy treadmill. Seriously, this thing is a beast.While moving said treadmill he started having some pain in his groin and figured he just pulled a muscle and wrote it off. Fast forward 2 weeks and he's still having the pain and it's more localized to his testicle. Getting worried about it he decides to make an appointment with the urologist for the following week. I did not accompany him to the appointment but I was less worried than him because I knew that tumors are typically not painful and he was experiencing a fair amount of it. Based on what he was telling me it sounded a lot like a hydrocele. Imagine my shock when he calls me after the appointment and the doctor is wanting him to get an ultrasound that same day because he felt a lump. At the ultrasound I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I'm not very good at looking at them but even I could tell that there was a very clear mass on his right testicle. Two hours later M got a call from the urologist and wanted to see him first thing in the morning to discuss the results of the ultrasound. What the doctor said 5was that he couldn't be sure it was cancer but if it was up to him he'd have it removed immediately. So M scheduled outpatient surgery for the next day.
That afternoon we were at the hospital getting all the pre-op stuff done and getting his instructions for the next day. Friday morning we were at the hospital at 5:30 am for an 8 am surgery time. M was pretty calm but I was a wreck because every possible bad thing that could happen was running through my mind. The surgery went smoothly though and his testicle was sent off for a pathology report. We were home by 1 pm and spent the rest of the day relaxing and recuperating. The pathology report took about 2 weeks to get back and confirmed that it was indeed cancer and that there was already some spread into the lymph nodes. During the time we were waiting for the pathology report to come back we discussed if he would get treatment here or get a referral to MD Anderson in Houston. We decided to get the referral and it was the right decision for us.
Now we're into March and meet with M's oncologist for the first time. He had several tests done before the meeting so the oncologist would have a baseline on everything and I was blown away by how incredibly large MD Anderson is and by the fact that every patient in the place is dealing with some form of cancer. You never really realize how many people it affects until you walk through that place. Anyway, back to the meeting. Dr. P is awesome. When he rolled in (he's wheel-chair bound) he greeted us and got straight to business. He explained exactly what type of cancer M had (embryonal carcinoma) and what stage he was (stage 2) and what his treatment plan would be. The typical regimen for his cancer is 3 rounds of BEP. BEP is three chemotherapy drugs called Bleomycin, Etoposide, and Cisplatin. Before starting though Dr. P wanted M to do a baseline pulmonary function test because the Bleomycin is toxic to the lungs and he wanted to make sure it would be appropriate before going forward with it. We met back with Dr. P a week later after the test and he did great so he went in to start his first round of chemo.
For his chemo treatments he was admitted to the hospital and stayed for 5 days. Dr. P said the other option was to get a medical port put in but since he was only getting 3 rounds it didn't make sense to do that so the best option was to be admitted. His hospital stays were pretty uneventful and M did pretty good with the treatments but don't get me wrong it was hard on him. He was sick a lot and he was pretty miserable throughout the treatment but he responded really well. By the time he got to the third round his tumor markers were almost back to normal.
After the last round he went back for another round of tests to see if his lymph nodes had shrunk back down to normal. The results were that they had gone back down but they were still a little bigger than the doctor was comfortable with so he recommended surgery to remove them. And that's brings us up to now. M has surgery on Wednesday and that's all we're waiting on. There is another lymph node that is 'suspicious' in his shoulder but since the surgery he has to do is so intensive his surgeon has decided it would be best to go back on another date to remove that node.
M is in pretty good health right now and has been back at work on light duty for about 2 months now. He's glad to be able to work and do things without getting fatigued so quickly. And I'm happy because he's out of the house and out of my hair during the day.
I know this was a pretty quick synopsis of his treatment so if anyone has questions please feel free to ask and I will be happy to answer them!
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