Surviving 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. I also wanted to bring to light the disgusting “quackery” and fraud that sadly manifests so commonly these days, and ultimately costs people their lives. And most of all, I wanted to promote the fantastic work of the Orchid Cancer Appeal in the UK. Elements of this writing were I believe used by Orchid in their newsletter at the time. In addition, there was an interview with the Daily Mail, which you can see here.)

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; it was just last week, when I pulled a muscle in my groin running for the bus, and trapped a nerve in the process. The discovery of my cancer, three years ago now, was far less dramatic:

It was a Sunday near the beginning of March 2005 (looking back through the calendar I figure it to have been March 6th, but I may be wrong), 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, I guess you’d call it, 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/irregularity 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 (the same thing that pregnant women have, to check on the health of their unborn foetuses; just a little lower down – and with men)… So please could he refer me?

He assured me that I needn’t worry, and that an ultrasound was really not necessary. I’m still not sure why he was so reluctant; I don’t believe they’re terribly expensive – a couple of hundred pounds, at most… Hardly enough to stretch his referrals budget, at any rate.

Anyway, 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.

I’m not normally so bullish (or maybe I am, I’m not the best one to judge), but when it comes to your health, you should never, ever take any prisoners – always, always, 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. Safety comes first, second and third when it comes to your health, in my book – at least these days it does, anyway…

But I digress: 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 (i.e. the length of time in which a testicular tumour – should it prove to be one – could effectively double in size) 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. Now, I don’t know whether I could have been seen for the scan any sooner, had the good doctor marked my referral as urgent, but even now, three years later, it still rankles with me that he so offhandedly dismissed my concerns – particularly as, yes you’ve guessed it, I did turn out to have something (that looked) big and black and nasty and (was) cancerous growing inside my testicle; two of them, in fact. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself.

I went home from the doctor that day, feeling a bit annoyed and frustrated, but at the same time at least vaguely comforted that I would be getting my wish and having an ultrasound scan – eventually.

Most of the subsequent 25 days have long since been consigned to the irretrievable vaults of forgetfulness (i.e. are no longer there), but one thing I do remember 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… I’m not sure what I would have done with it had I managed to get any, but it’s always comforting to seek advice from people more knowledgeable than oneself, isn’t it? No-one called back all day, until finally, at around 5.45 in the afternoon, I managed to get through to one of the partners at the surgery; who advised me that I could go to a local after hours Harmoni clinic if I was in that much pain (which by that point, I was). Now, I’m still not entirely sure how or why Harmoni was set up, but it’s basically a group of medical clinics scattered around Greater London and the Home Counties, staffed by GPs in their spare time, and open after-hours. And it was to them I went.

The lady I saw, in Amersham, Bucks (the clinic was very near the station to- and from- which I travelled into London every day) was absolutely lovely, and had the bedside manner of Mother Theresa (Ok, so I’m on sketchy ground here having never actually met Mother Theresa, but I’m taking a wild guess and making an assumption)… but unfortunately she didn’t really know all that much about testicles – and this was something she admitted herself, so I assure you I’m not doing her a disservice. She couldn’t actually feel the lump which by that stage I’d convinced myself was there (it turned out to be tiny anyway, so no surprise really, in retrospect), 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 really asserting itself between my legs… And when I was nearly home, I stopped at the local off-licence, where I had worked the previous year, 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. I also succeeded in stepping on, and breaking, a pair of brand new and fairly expensive sunglasses, and having an unbelievable hangover the next day. But there we are.

Nothing else from those 25 days really stands out as having been particularly unusual, aside I suppose from the constant threat of that hideous nagging pain, looming over me – which, for all I know, may have been completely psychosomatic in any case… Who knows?

And so it was that on the day of the ultrasound (13th April 2005, I believe), I drove myself down to High Wycombe Hospital. I was alone; I suppose at that stage, on that particular morning, it hadn’t really registered that I might discover something which would cause me to really, really want some company… I remember being called in, asked to remove – or at least pull down – my underwear and trousers (although hopefully in the reverse order), and get up on the examining bed/couch thing. The ultrasound practitioner (oddly enough, there’s all sorts of confusion as to the correct proper noun for these people, as there are apparently no actual legal requirements in order for someone to become a sonographer… which is what one really should call them, I suppose) – anyway, the ultrasound practitioner/sonographer smeared some gel (I remember it being quite cold) over my right testicle, and applied his magic wand (it’s like a barcode scanner in a supermarket – in appearance at least) 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 (clearly a meteorological phenomena, caused by the condensation of water droplets in the atmosphere, didn’t literally pass across his face – but you know what I mean)…

“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 (my heart didn’t literally sink at all, but again, that’s how it felt).

“Um, ya. Of course.” And 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. Please note: normal testicular tissue is not grey, and by the same token cancerous tumours (or seminoma, which is what I turned out to have) are not actually black; they’re grey/white… But that’s how they appeared on the screen that day – and I can tell you, they looked to me to be about the ugliest things I’d ever seen… Clearly they were actually just two big black lumps floating in a dirty-grey background, on a TV screen – but the emotional response they elicited… Well, I imagine you can guess.

Interestingly, cancerous cells on an x-ray (as opposed to an ultrasound), look completely different: they appear white. Lance Armstrong, in his excellent first memoir, ‘It’s Not About The Bike: My Journey Back To Life’, describes an x-ray of his lungs as looking “like a snowstorm” (after the testes, the lungs are the first place that testicular cancer metastasises, or moves, to). On an ultrasound however, as I’ve said, cancerous cells appear black. It can be confusing.

“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 (alright, that’s a bit of an exaggeration – but it certainly didn’t take long) 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 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 – Thursday 14th April 2005.

And so I did. I was driven to the hospital on this occasion, by my Dad. I remember us sitting in the waiting area, with me rabbiting away, chatting nervously about nothing in particular.

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, in a very jocular and amicable manner, 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: The ultrasound had shown that I had tumours (or seminoma, to give them their correct definition) in my right testicle – and later histopathology would concur: Identifying not only this grey/white tumour, 7mm in diameter (tiny, isn’t it – yet soooooo dangerous and life-changing), but also adjacent to this, a smaller grey/white deposit measuring 5mm in diameter; and two separate yellowish deposits present around the tumour, also. All turned out to be cancerous in nature. 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, and thrown away (in a manner of speaking).

So an appointment was made for surgery the following Friday, 22nd April, with an option to bring this forward should an appropriate gap arise… As, in the end, it did:

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, those linked to the cancerous testicle; so in theory kids would still be possible – but more on that later…

One thing I remember vividly which happened sometime between my diagnosis and my subsequent operation, is going shopping with my stepmother Robin in Beaconsfield; at one stage listed as the most expensive place in the country to live – so a town in which I would not expect “quackery” to be tolerated. Nonetheless, I was to be nastily surprised: Robin wanted to get some vitamins and other assorted health-products so we nipped into Holland & Barrett, and whilst she was in conversation with the assistant, I browsed the book section. It was there that my eye was caught by a book entitled “The Cure for All Cancers” by someone called Hulda Regehr Clark.

In it Clark claims, amongst other things, that all cancers and many other diseases are caused by “parasites, toxins, and pollutants” and can be cured by killing the parasites and ridding the body of environmental chemicals. She states: “All cancers are alike. They are all caused by a parasite. A single parasite! It is the human intestinal fluke. And if you kill this parasite, the cancer stops immediately. The tissue becomes normal again. In order to get cancer, you must have this parasite….”

Now, I realise that this notion sounds totally ridiculous, but when you’re faced with the prospect of losing a testicle, along with that of having to undergo chemotherapy, you tend to find yourself clutching at straws… And so it was that I found myself standing at the book section in the Beaconsfield branch of Holland & Barrett, eagerly devouring the absurd claims that Clark makes in her book, basically wanting them to be true – particularly the suggestion that one can cure all cancers with a combination of herbs and minor electric shocks: “Does this mean you can cancel your date for surgery, radiation or chemotherapy? YES! After curing your cancer with this recipe it cannot come back… Remember that oncologists are kind, sensitive, compassionate people. They want the best for you. They have no way of knowing about the true cause and cure of cancer since it has not been published for them”…

Anyway, I excitedly rushed over to show my stepmother my discovery, and in typically calm fashion, she suggested that we perhaps ought to go home and conduct our own research into the claims made by Clark, before spending £30 on the book, or more importantly, getting my hopes up unrealistically. And so we did just that.

We didn’t have to look at all far (a simple Google search sufficed) before discovering that Clark is referred to variously as a “quackpot” and a fraud; and perhaps most appropriately, in hindsight, as “The Most Dangerous Woman in America”:

I stumbled across headlines such as “Hulda Clark robs Tijuana woman of chance to survive deadly cancer!”; “Hulda Clark Lawsuit Reinstated”; “How Hulda Clark Victimized My Parents”, “Hulda Clark killed my mother”, along with a “Refutation of Clark’s basic theories” and a “Repudiation of The Cure for All Cancers”. Clark is globally debunked for her quackery, whilst nothing that she claims “provides any basis for concluding that [her] treatment has the slightest value”.

So much for that then, huh?

I guess the reason I’ve spent some time talking about this is because I feel extremely strongly about it: The fact that such fraudsters – people who clearly have no regard for anything over and above their own wealth and notoriety – are not summarily incarcerated, but are allowed to continue to propagate their lies the world over, I find utterly inconceivable. I wouldn’t have said that I’m an especially gullible person, and I certainly don’t think I’m stupid – and yet, at my most vulnerable, I was almost sucked in by the claims made by a complete fraud. I don’t want anyone else to fall into that trap. In instructing people to avoid traditional methods of cancer treatment (e.g. chemotherapy, radiotherapy and/or surgery) and to cancel their appointments for such treatments, Hulda Clark is ultimately guilty of sentencing those people to death. Frighteningly, further research into her work finds that “In some cases, she counted patients as cured even though she noted that they died within a few weeks after she treated them”!!! So, I ask you, if you are misfortunate enough to be diagnosed with a cancer, please, please, PLEASE don’t go down the alternative therapy route; quackery such as this has been shown to be utterly ineffective (typically with no evidence to support it in the first place) and is too often sadly the work of wicked people, who simply wish to exploit others when they are at their most vulnerable.

In any case, I shall move on: It was Tuesday 19th April, the day of my operation; and I was sat with my Dad in a small cubicle prior to going through to the operating theatre (my stepmother may have been there too, I can’t honestly recall), 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.”

Now, I obviously don’t need to point out that at this point I was very nervous. Extremely nervous, in fact. I had never had an operation before, and really didn’t know what to expect – quite aside from the fact that I knew once I woke up on the other side of the knife, I’d be less one b*llock.

So 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.

“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.

To which he came back with, “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).

And so after opting for the prosthesis (after all, you don’t get much free in this world do you, so I guess you should take what you can – that was a joke too), 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. I hope you won’t consider me totally inept when I tell you I think I only made it as far as seven..?

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 was tended by a lovely nurse called Sue, whose friendly and comforting approach helped me to feel slightly less of a wally in needing assistance to and from the toilet, when I was surrounded by other patients who all looked like sexta-, septua- or octogenarians, and yet who all seemed to be coping perfectly well with life in general…

Now, 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, having been kept in overnight only to be woken up every hour or so to have my temperature, blood pressure and pulse taken (to check that my body was recovering properly from the anaesthetic, I’m told). And by the following morning 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…

And so I had a few days (maybe even a week) at home (my Dad’s house, at the time), recovering from the surgery: I watched endless episodes of 24 (I think I got through three series’ in a row), read several books and generally lounged about the place a lot. It was great. Although I hurt a lot. And I wasn’t allowed to do any lifting or strenuous exercise – although that bit wasn’t such a big problem!

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 – and then it was back to work, where apart from my boss and one member of my immediate team, no-one knew what I’d been having done – so there was a fair amount of “Oh, I just had to have a small op on my leg/back” etc whenever people enquired as to why I was walking peculiarly… And that was it.

Oh, no it wasn’t: I had to store some sperm and then have some chemotherapy… They were both fun experiences, too. Want to hear about them? OK then:

My Oncologist (the aforementioned Dr Protheroe) had decreed that apart from the surgery, he wanted me to have a course of radiotherapy or some chemo. It apparently didn’t seem to matter which; but he told me that he definitely wanted me to have one of the two types of treatment in order to sufficiently irradiate the surrounding area, so as to minimise the chances of the cancer surviving and/or reoccurring outside of my now-absent testicle, and then spreading to my remaining one. The decision as to which kind, was entirely up to me.

Consensus suggests that the immediate toxicity of radiotherapy (i.e. how bad it is for you) is less than that of chemotherapy, but that the risk of relapse (i.e. the cancer reoccurring) after radiotherapy is higher with larger-volume disease. Now, the definition of larger-volume disease is that greater than 2cm in diameter, meaning my 7mm tumour (and adjacent bits) didn’t qualify. Ergo, I could have either treatment and the results were likely to be the same. There was a chance, I was told, that the chemo would make me feel slightly worse in the short term than if I opted for radio – but with radio, I would have to go in for a two minute burst every day for a week, which it was thought might have a more deleterious effect upon my general lifestyle (as opposed to the chemo, with which I would only be required to give up an hour, in order for it to be administered)… So, both treatments were pretty much level pegging, in terms of their desirability – or not, as the case turned out to be.

Anyway, in the end I decided to go down the chemo route, primarily I guess because of its comparative ease (i.e. one session and it would be done).

Before I could have the chemotherapy however, I was advised to store some sperm – and so it was that sometime between having the orchidectomy (Tuesday April 19th) and my appointment with the dreaded chemo (which ended up being booked for Thursday 16th June), I drove up to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford for an appointment in the Andrology department. Now, I’m still not sure to this day why I had to go all the way to Oxford (Ok, it was only 30 miles, but still…) or indeed why I had to pay for the privilege of allowing them to cryogenically store a little tub of my “stuff” – when I know for a fact that if I had happened to live in Oxford (the “catchment area” for Dr Protheroe’s Oncology team). I would have received the same service for free… Anyway, having forked out for five hours’ worth of parking (I had no idea how long I was going to be), I had to undergo yet another series of blood tests, this time to ensure I wasn’t carrying any infectious diseases (HIV, Hepatitis etc) that could contaminate their storage facilities. After the results had been processed (I seem to remember that somehow they had them within an hour or so), I had to be interviewed as to my intentions for the sperm (i.e. kids etc), and advised as to possible repercussions of the localised trauma that I had already experienced (i.e. the operation) – in short, they suggested that my reproductive system would already have suffered a serious shock from having had a testicle etc. removed, so there was a chance, I was told, that my sperm might already be damaged – but that this should be reversible. What might not be so reversible would be the damage that was likely to be caused by the chemotherapy I was to undergo the following month… which was why they were taking the precaution of storing some of my ejaculate (such a lovely word!), prior to my being treated with chemo.

And so came the point at which I was handed a small plastic tub and directed towards a small room, being told to “take my time”. I still remember it now: Terry Wogan was on the radio (needless to say I switched him off immediately), and there was a reasonably comfortable-looking chair positioned next to a table on which there sat a pile of “gentleman’s” magazines… I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

Suffice to say however, I was rather surprised when, upon handing the lady in charge my little tub (which was no longer exactly empty), I was asked to write out a cheque for £200 – yes, you heard correctly: £200… Talk about adding insult to injury: I had been feeling low enough already! Furthermore, this was only going to cover the cryogenic storage of my sperm for the first year!

Anyway, needs must, and although these days I’m not remotely interested in having children, it was thought at the time that storing some of my sperm in order to at least give me the option of reproduction, was a good idea. And so I did.

The Andrology taken care of, I was now Ok to proceed with the second part of my treatment, the chemotherapy, the following month.

And so it was that on Thursday 16th June I went back down to High Wycombe Hospital, to the Chemotherapy Department (I imagine it may have had another less sinister name, but I can’t for the life of me recall what), where I was greeted by another one of the world’s good people, who sat me in a soft comfy armchair (most out of place in an NHS hospital, I can tell you!), and asked if I wanted tea and biscuits. You can very likely guess my reply:

“What sort of biscuits?”

To which I believe the response was equally as puzzling as the presence of the armchair, something like, “Ooh we’ve got all sorts, what kind would you like?”

Anyway, I had a cup of tea and a few biscuits, and was about to request more of both when the dear lady set about her task, inserting the cannula into the back of my hand, ready for the delivery of the toxic substance to follow. A cannula (from the Latin “little reed”) is a flexible tube which when inserted into the body is used either to withdraw fluid or insert medication. In this instance, it was to be used for the administration of an intravenous (i.e. into the vein) fluid – specifically carboplatin chemotherapy. Anyway, the nurse inserted this thing into the back of my hand (I remember thinking that it was an extremely odd place to put it, but apparently there’s a vein there), and then began to pass saline solution through the tube, in order to sterilize it all, prior to sending the nasty stuff in – in my case the carboplatin, which as far as I can tell is basically a poisonous mix of carbon and platinum: Needless to say, extremely toxic, and not particularly nice.

Almost as soon as she had turned on the valve, the area of skin around the cannula began to get more and more uncomfortable: a gnawing, biting ache that was spreading across my entire hand. I assumed this was all part of the process and didn’t want to make a fuss, but when the pain continued to worsen, I asked the dear lady why it was hurting so much, when she hadn’t even started the chemo bit as yet..? She immediately looked rather startled, and upon investigating the entry point, admitted apologetically that the cannula hadn’t gone in correctly – which basically meant that she was injecting saline solution into the skin tissue; this, I hasten to add, is extremely painful, and not something I’d recommend..!

Anyway, she reinserted the tube in the correct place, switched on the ‘tap’ and the carboplatin began working its merry way into my venal system. One hour (and several cups of tea) later, we were done. I was given some anti-nausea pills and some steroids, which I’ve since learned are intended to give an additional boost to the effects of the anti-sickness pills. And that was it.

I went straight in to the office, feeling fine for the rest of the day, and indeed pretty healthy for the following day, Friday. However when I got up on the Saturday, intending to drive down the South coast with my then-girlfriend, Penny, to spend the weekend with my Mother, I was feeling somewhat the worse for wear: Rather queasy and generally unpleasant. Penny volunteered to drive us to Mother’s instead, getting us there two-and-a-half hours later – me feeling utterly vile, and having to take myself straight off to bed. Unfortunately despite feeling completely drained and exhausted, I was extremely restless and had insomnia, so couldn’t even think about sleep. Furthermore, although I felt really sick and nauseous, I couldn’t actually be sick or bring up anything whatsoever in order to feel better. In short, I was a mess and couldn’t pull myself out of bed for the entire weekend. Add to this that Mother and Penny – who hardly knew each other – then had to go to a drinks party together that evening without me, and I was feeling very sorry for myself indeed. On the plus side however, I was feeling much better by the time I got home on Sunday evening, and was more-or-less myself by Monday morning, when I just about felt able to go to work.

And that was it. 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”, and 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 (a tumour marker is a substance found in the blood, urine, or body tissues that can be elevated in cancer; an elevated level of a tumour marker can therefore be an indication of cancer).

And then after all of that lot, I’ll be as in-the-clear as it’s ever going to be possible for me to be.

Oh, 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 (in fact most likely while I was at home recuperating, immediately after the operation), 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. I pray that I always will be. I still check my remaining testicle regularly for any abnormalities or irregularities (I always will), and unfortunately am now extremely aware of humankind’s vulnerability to serious illness – after all, there is nothing in the world we can do to prevent ourselves from becoming a victim of cancer. Although having said that, I very much subscribe to the school of thought which says that (at least) one glass of wine every day is good for you..!

It was in light of my experience that when someone very dear to me returned from a holiday in Capetown this February (where I was going to be holidaying the following month) 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 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.

If you’re interested, you can find out more about Orchid, and donate to them directly by visiting www.orchid-cancer.org.uk.

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!