Huh.
Reflecting on my victory over testicular cancer dredges up so many crazy emotions and intense stories that I really haven't though about in a long time. Let's see.
There's me snapping ridiculous photos of my massive right testicle and showing it to my friends, thinking it was probably torsion or something. I mean this thing was huge. It fit in my hand like a goddamn baseball. But there's no way it could be cancer, right? I'm so naive sometimes...
There's me bicking my hair because I didn't want to deal with it falling out in terrible clumps, but, cool, it grew back in and did it anyways.
There's me asking the doctor so politely if he could remove the obnoxious skin tag on my chest while he's putting in the port-o-cath anyways (no big deal, just minor cosmetic surgery during a serious procedure...but he was nice enough to do it anyways).
There's me nervously whistling the "Rescue Aid Society" theme song from The Rescuers, lying in a bed right before my 11-hour retroperitoneal lymph node dissection (RPLND) surgery...and then me apparently belting it out for my sister while I was doped up on some seriously good shit afterwards.
There's me trapped in a double room at the hospital, recovering for a full week next to the world's most talkative, cry-baby of a man I've ever met. "Poor me, I fell of the top rung of a tall ladder because I'm an idiot and forgot I'm not supposed to stand on that one, and now I have some fractured bones in my leg and I'm stuck out of work for a few weeks". Yeah, your life sucks dude. At 40 you've got some broken bones, at 21 I'm getting carved like a turkey to remove some tumors and cells that have decided to go haywire on me. Speaking of which, I should probably be getting some rest. Oh, unless you want to talk some more? No, no, please go on. I insist! It's only 2am.
There's me getting my 57 staples removed from the scar running from the middle of my chest down to my groin, wrapping tastefully around my belly-button. Picture Chance from Homeward Bound getting all those porcupine needles taken out of his face. Yeah, that bad. Probably the most painful thing I went through. I tossed some nice curse words at the nurse. I feel bad, she was a saint.
There's me laughing at my friends, who are all stunned that I haven't used the "cancer card" to get laid. Honestly, am I really that shallow? (To be fair, if it's a last ditch option, I'm not saying I won't show my scars. They are pretty killer...)
I'm reflecting on these things while sitting in the comfort of my huge room, in my 4-bedroom apartment in downtown Portland, listening to Alkaline Trio and the quiet rain outside. Since my cancer-free diagnosis in June of 2011, I've barely had the time to sit down and really think about it all. I've been too busy catching up in school (thanks again, Cancer, for setting me back a semester), or working my ass off to cover my bills, or worrying about my internship at WCSH6 this summer, or socializing with the few actual friends I feel I have left in this oh-so-great state.
I've driven myself right back into the daily drain. I promised I'd look at the world differently and appreciate everything more. I swore to make myself the best person I possibly could be, physically, mentally, intellectually. I'm just now starting to graze the surface physically, and I'm finally feeling like I'm getting the hang of my major and really starting to enjoy myself. Mentally I've been effing myself for a long time now.
I think I only cried twice during those 6 months. Once, on the way back from my dad's house after breaking the news, alone in the car on a cold night, as scared as I've ever felt. The second, just before the right radical orchiectomy, where the doctor took away half of my manhood, the first time going under the knife.
It's time for me to break the mold. I'm going to use this blog to share everything I am learning, or have learned, about being healthy and being prepared for the war on cancer. Nobody should have to blindly go through what I went through at such a young age.
Hopefully by reading this blog, you'll never have to.
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