My experience with testicular cancer, banking sperm, and chemotherapy

I was diagnosed, I was in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the time, 26 years old, feeling like a normal 26 year old kid, you know, going to the gym, playing basketball, didn’t think, you know, in the world, that I’d get cancer. It didn’t even cross my mind that it could happen to me. I felt pain immediately, and that’s very unusual for guys fighting testicular cancer, it’s about 1 in 10. But, I did have pain that was very pinpointed in the testicle. Fortunately, I went in right away. It was so bad I doubled over in pain. I was kind of at a 45 degree angle, it was that bad. I couldn’t even stand up straight. It was that intense. And basically that started the whole fight.

The first step was to cut out the testicle. An Orchiectomy is what it’s called, an Orchiectomy surgery. After that, I did go in to bank sperm. I was very lucky, I had a wonderful doctor who was very aware and said to me right away, “There is a good chance you’re going to be sterile, and you’ve got to think about those things. Even though we’re thinking about treating you and helping you live and beating cancer, but you’ve got to think about down the road. You’re only 26 but when you do want kids, you know, you should probably bank sperm.” And that’s exactly what I did. I went in 5 or 6 times, quickly, and then that following week, boom, started chemo right away. And I was on chemo for about five months.