Awareness and Guide to Testicular Cancer
What is testicular cancer?
This isn’t too difficult to figure out. It’s pretty self explanatory. If you have been recently diagnosed try not to worry too much. Your chances of survival are quite good. The treatment is usually curative. I was diagnosed with stage 3 mixed-seminoma germ cell tumor testicular cancer and I’m still alive and doing well almost two years later. There is no stage 4. The increasing stages represent the spread of the disease. Stage 3 would mean it has spread to other parts of your body. For me it had spread to my chest and lungs. For others it spreads to the abdomen.
How is testicular cancer treated?
First of all, I am only able to speak from my first hand experience with testicular cancer. I am not a doctor. Initially, after an ultrasound of my testicles, I had something called an orchiectomy. This is a medical term for having your nut(s) removed. I only had one affected testicle which was removed (hence the name of my YouTube channel and this website). Two weeks after my surgery I underwent 3 rounds of BEP chemotherapy. It’s no joke. You can die from infections with such a depleted immune system.
I was treated in the chemo clinic at the Jurivinski Cancer Centre in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Each round lasted 3 weeks. During the first week of every cycle I was infused with BEP though a PICC line. On Monday of the second and third weeks of each round I was only infused with bleomycin. The remainder of each week was used for recovery. I was given lots of anti-nausea pills and a dose of steroids (dexamethasone) for each round of BEP.
Chemo was not easy. I was very tired. I wasn’t really hungry. I lost all my hair and it has now grown back, albeit curly. I never vomited. I had a large swollen lymph node around my collarbone that was gone after the first round. That was super positive. It’s also important to note for anyone going through this that the doctors never did anything that hurt me. The biopsies, 41 cm PICC line inserted into my bicep around my shoulder to my chest, the surgery: none of it hurt. It was the side effects that caused the discomfort.
What are the symptoms?
A really good website to find a info about testicular cancer symptoms is testicularcancer.ngo. The first sign of testicular cancer would be a lump on one of your testicles. This is when you want to catch it. Go see a doctor right away if you discover a lump on your nuts. If you catch it early enough you may not need to undergo chemotherapy.
If the cancer has spread you will likely start feeling some constant pain/discomfort in the area in which it has spread; usually the abdomen or chest. For me I started feeling a slight pain in my chest every once and while for about a year and a half before I went to see a doctor. I am a pretty active guy. My thought was that it was a torn muscle in my chest. I was working as a tandem skydive instructor at the time and my chest was often sore from attaching people to me all day long and jumping out of an airplane. I also had lots of other permanent aches and pains from mountain bike crashes and hockey injuries. I didn’t take chest pain seriously enough and I should have.
The pain was a dull pain in my chest that eventually became a pain in my back as well. It got very painful as the tumors multiplied. One night just before chemo I had to call an ambulance as the tumors were pressing so hard into my lungs I could not breathe.
Other than the pain I do not recall any other noticeable symptoms.
Can I still be a pilot if I have testicular cancer?
Short answer, ‘YES’. However, You cannot be going through chemotherapy and taking other drugs. You will need to be considered cancer free by your oncologist. You will also need to supply documentation, such as prognosis and CT scan results to Transport Canada (TC) or the FAA. I was cleared by TC to fly commercially one month after my last dose of chemotherapy. I am currently awaiting a response from the FAA for a foreign licence conversion.
Time lapse of round one of BEP chemotherapy for testicular cancer treatment
Conclusion
If you have recently been diagnosed, are going through, or have gone through testicular cancer feel free to reach out to me. I will try to answer any questions you have about the disease. If you are a pilot and have questions I will try to help with any questions as well. You can contact me through the form on this site.
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