Know Your Balls: How I Survived Testicular Cancer
(I originally wrote this in April 2008, in an attempt to ‘normalise’ receiving a diagnosis of cancer, as well as to encourage people to question their doctors when unhappy with a diagnosis.)
The searing pain lanced through my groin in a bolt of pure agony — I dropped to the ground, trying desperately not to pass out from the shock and the pain.
“Hello, I’m a doctor. Can I help?” I heard from an Asian lady nearby, who proceeded to guide me to a nearby bench, where she gave me a bottle of water, before helping me into a taxi with instructions for him to take me to the nearest hospital.
Interestingly, this wasn’t the moment that I discovered I had testicular cancer. This discovery of my cancer, three years ago now, was far less dramatic:
It was a Sunday near the beginning of March 2005, and I was lying in bed watching the Hollyoaks omnibus (yes, I admit it). I remember they were running a storyline about one of the male characters — Russ, I believe — discovering a lump on one of his testicles, which needless to say, turned out to be cancerous; he therefore ended up having to have an operation to remove the offending article, and quite understandably was rather upset about it all.
That’s pretty much all I remember about the programme content, but the point is that it was enough. For some reason (and to this day I’m still not quite sure why) this particular message prompted me to have a bit a bit of a “feel around down below” in the shower a little later — during which I detected a small… well, an irregularity on the surface of my right testicle. Reasoning that it was probably nothing, but erring on the side of caution, I telephoned my GP the next day to make an appointment. I was told that my regular doctor wasn’t going to be available for quite some time, but that if I wished I could see one of the other doctors in the practice the following week.
This is the important bit. The doctor I ended up seeing, Dr Mubarak, when I told him my concerns, examined my testes and genital area, before immediately declaring that the lump was merely an “epididymal cyst” (i.e. nothing to be concerned about). I told him that I, of course, respected his professional opinion, but that for my own peace of mind, I really wanted to have an ultrasound scan so please could he refer me?
He assured me that I needn’t worry and that an ultrasound was really not necessary. It took about four refusals on the part of Dr Mubarak (who I’ve recently learnt has been struck off for “inappropriately examining a female patient” — draw your own conclusions from that), before I finally told him that I really had to insist and that I would speak to another doctor there and then if necessary.
When it comes to your health, you should never, ever take any prisoners — always make sure you get things checked out. No matter how small or insignificant you think something is — if it’s bothering you, get it checked out. Hell, if it’s bothering a friend of yours, you should still make sure you get it checked out. Mubarak eventually gave me a referral, but it wasn’t for another three-and-a-half weeks — 25 days, during which time I was ill-advisedly doing my own research on the internet, and in doing so established that testicular cancer doubling times can be as little as ten days. So, in effect, should I turn out to have something cancerous growing inside me, it could double in size, then double again, and then be halfway towards doubling in size yet again, by the time I was due to have my ultrasound.
I went home from the doctor that day, feeling a bit annoyed and frustrated, but at the same time at least vaguelycomforted that I would be getting my wish and having an ultrasound scan — eventually.
One thing I do remember from this time is that I began to experience a dull throbbing ache within my right testicle, at fairly regular intervals — to the point that on one particular occasion, I was in such discomfort that I had called my doctor’s surgery from work first thing to try and speak to one of the GPs for some advice.
The lady I saw in Amersham, Bucks was absolutely lovely, and had the bedside manner of Mother Theresa. Unfortunately, she didn’t really know all that much about testicles (by her own admission). She couldn’t actually feel the lump which by that stage I’d convinced myself was there and she had no idea how to abate the pain, other than suggesting I take a couple of co-codamol, or some such.
So I drove home. That dull, throbbing ache in my right testicle was really asserting itself between my legs. When I was nearly home, I stopped at the local off-licence and bought myself a half-bottle of whisky — either Bells or Teachers, I imagine.
I got home, went straight up to my room, and proceeded to polish off the entire lot, in an attempt to get absolutely blind drunk to try and blot out the pain. I succeeded.
And so it was that on the day of the ultrasound, I drove myself down to High Wycombe Hospital. The ultrasound practitioner smeared some gel (I remember it being quite cold) over my right testicle, and applied his magic wand (it resembles a barcode scanner) to its surface. After moving the scanner-thing backwards and forwards over the surface of my testis for several minutes, a cloud passed over his face.
“Erm… What have you found?” I asked, swallowing. My throat was dry as bone.
“Um, I really need your doctor to analyse the results, and for him to feed them back to you himself, I’m afraid,” he replied, clearly stalling.
“It’s, er, it’s not a cyst, is it?”
“Um, no…”
“… Or an abscess?” I suggested hopefully.
“Ahh… no. I’m afraid not.”
“So it’s bad then. May I have a look?” I queried, my heart sinking.
“Um, yeah. Of course.” He turned the monitor screen towards me and there it was. Or rather, there they were: Two big, black, nasty-looking round things, apparently swimming amidst the light grey background of my testicle.
“So, I’ll have to fax through these results to your GP, and I expect you’ll get a call from him a bit later on, or tomorrow,” said my sonographer.
And that was that.
I was scarcely even out of the room before the good doctor, Mubarak, was on the phone. He made no mention of being sorry, and he certainly didn’t make reference to his abysmal misdiagnosis; he simply told me that someone from the Oncology team (headed up by the soon-to-be-established-in-my-mind-as-a-magnificent-member-of-the-human-race, Dr Protheroe) would be calling me in due course to arrange a follow-up consultation.
The next day, true to his word, someone from Dr Protheroe’s team, his secretary I suppose, telephoned me to ask if I could come in to see him the following day.
And so I did. I was driven to the hospital on this occasion by my Dad. We got called in, sat down and, whilst I assume we must have had some discussion beforehand, the only thing I can vividly remember Dr Protheroe saying was “well, I think we’d better just pop it out then, hadn’t we?”
Now, bear in mind that the above was in reference to one of my testicles; my crown jewels; the embodiment of my masculinity — I really didn’t want to be hearing those words. However, I knew that he was speaking the truth. Basically, I’d caught it early — very early — and had I not done so, I would have been in serious trouble. And as it was, Dr Protheroe wasn’t taking any chances: He wanted the entire offending article removed from my body.
My surgery was brought forward to the morning of Tuesday 19th April, 2005. They were to perform an orchidectomy — removal of the testis and connected tubes — only the tubes on one side however, so in theory kids would still be possible.
The day of my operation I was sat with my Dad in a small cubicle prior to going through to the operating theatre when the surgeon slid open the curtain, entered and squatted down beside me. I was already wearing a hospital gown by this point, so he just had to slide it aside in order to draw a big arrow in permanent marker on my right thigh: “Wouldn’t want them removing the wrong one now, would we?” he jested when I looked at him curiously. Yikes, I thought — has that happened before?
“Now then,” he continued. “Have you considered whether you might like to have a prosthetic one put in, to replace the one we’re going to remove?”
“Well…” I stammered. “I don’t really know. What would you suggest? What does everyone else do?”
“It depends,” my surgeon replied amicably. “I suppose most people your sort of age do tend to have one put in, yes… but it really is entirely up to you.”
I did what people so often do in difficult situations — I tried to make light of it, and cracked a joke (albeit a poor one). “Can I choose the size?” I quipped.
“Can I choose the size?” I quipped.
“Um, well, we tend to match the size of the prosthesis according to your own, well, size…,” said the surgeon, momentarily thrown off balance by my daft question.
“So what sizes are there?” I bantered.
“Well, we have small… medium… and large.”
“And what size am I then?” I returned, determined to alleviate the nerves I felt threatening to engulf and paralyse me.
“Erm, well, you’d be a medium” was his disappointing reply.
And here comes the joke — wait for it:
“Oh, so I can’t call myself Johnny Big B*llocks anymore then? But Johnny Medium B*llocks really doesn’t have the same ring!”
He laughed politely (as did my Dad).
So after opting for the prosthesis, it was time for me to be wheeled through to the anaesthesia room, where a delightful motherly woman stuck a needle in my arm and asked me to count backwards from ten.
And then I woke up several hours later, in another part of the hospital, feeling woozy from the anaesthetic and sore from the op. I’d be lying if I said that the next few days were fantastic; they weren’t. But I was out of the hospital the very next morning. By this time they felt confident enough to send me home, safe in the knowledge that I was going to be a good host for my new Medium-size prosthesis.
I had a few days at home, recovering from the surgery. Various friends came around with DVDs, books, chocolates and other kind gifts, to wish me well; the soreness gradually eased and the wound quietened down. Then it was back to work. Apart from my boss and one member of my immediate team, no-one knew what I’d been having done. There was a fair amount of “oh, I just had to have a small op on my leg/back” whenever people enquired as to why I was walking peculiarly.
And that was it.
Oh, no it wasn’t. I had to go through a lengthy experience to store some sperm and then have some chemotherapy. Neither were particularly fun experiences as you can probably imagine.
After it was over I booked a holiday to Ibiza for the following month, telling my then-boss that I wanted to “go to Spain for some R&R”. Although I couldn’t possibly repeat what he called me when he saw the receipt for the flights on my desk and realised that it was Ibiza — and not mainland Spain — that I’d arranged to visit, I had a great time with some wonderful friends, who helped me to forget (or at the very least, to get over) the turbulent experiences of the past few months.
Now, I just have to go back for regular check ups with one of Dr Protheroe’s consultants in the Oncology team at High Wycombe Hospital. One has to go back for these appointments every three months for the first three years, then six-monthly for a further year or so, and finally annually for another couple of years. At these check-ups, they conduct a manual examination (thankfully, I’ve never had a Jessica Alba look-alike for one of these, otherwise it could get embarrassing!); a chest x-ray to make sure the cancer hasn’t reoccurred and metastasised to my lungs; and a blood test to measure the level of “tumour-markers” in my bloodstream.
And then after all of that lot, I was as in-the-clear as it’s ever going to be possible for me to be.
One last thing. In light of the fact that I had discovered my cancer three years ago as a result of having watched an episode of Hollyoaks, I hope you won’t think it strange when I say that I felt (and indeed still feel) extremely indebted to Phil Redmond, the show’s creator and Executive Producer. And so, shortly after my orchidectomy in late April of that year , I wrote to him, to thank him from the bottom of my heart. And, a few weeks later, I received the following reply:
16th June, 2005
Dear Jonathan
I’m sorry it has taken me a while responding to your card but I was so pleased to receive it and hear of your experience.
If you have no objection, I will make sure that everyone connected with the programme hears about it, without identifying you personally, because it is quite heartening to get such direct feedback — and to feel that the programme may have actually (to use a cliché) made a difference.
Best wishes,
Prof. Phil Redmond CBE
Executive Producer
The Mersey Television Company Limited
It’s now three years later, and so far (touch wood and fingers crossed — permanently) I’m still cancer-free.
It was in light of my experience that when someone very dear to me returned from a holiday in Capetown this February and told me she’d done a skydive there, I decided I would do the same; but that I would do it in order to raise sponsorship money for an incredibly worthy charity, the Orchid Cancer Appeal — the first registered UK charity dedicated to funding research into diagnosis, prevention and treatment of the male cancers (testicular, prostate and penile), and to increasing public awareness of these previously neglected diseases. I set up a fundraising site on the internet and managed to raise nearly £4000, a sum with which I’m extremely pleased. My mother and I also did various other work with Orchid, using her profile (she used to be on television) to help promote and fundraise for them, in any way we could.
So, if you will permit me to leave you with one final thought? Don’t worry, it’s not “please watch Hollyoaks”; it’s the slogan used by the Orchid Cancer Appeal on the wristbands they sell:
Know Your Balls… Check ’Em Out!
. . .
This is an edited version of the article which originally appeared on So Many Stories and can be read in full here.
Originally published by Jonathan Leeming at The Vocal
