by Danielle Skeldon

Created on: April 30, 2009

"So you're saying you have to chop my balls off?"

Apparently that is the first thought that runs through a man's mind the moment he realizes he has testicular cancer. Most men don't realize that its really not like that at all.

It took almost a year before my husband was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Months of Vicoden prescriptions and visits to urgent care failed to find the root of his "back ache". With a testicle almost the size of a baseball you would think that someone, mainly one of us, would have at least mentioned the possibility of cancer to one of the many different doctors he saw throughout that year, but sadly we had absolutely no idea. The lack of publisized education on the subject at that time lead us straight down a hard and almost certainly avoidable path of misery.

According to the Mayo-Clinic, testicular cancer is the most common form of cancer found in men between the ages of 15- 34, and yet it seems like until Lance Armstrong was diagnosed , most men hadn't the slightest clue about it. Most importantly, most men were ignorant in the ways of early detection. I think its amazing how everywhere we turn you can find information on self breast exams. So many womens lives have been saved due to early detection, so why can we educate men as well?

With early detection, most cases of testicular cancer can be dealt with with minimal devastation to the man involved. If more men realized that then maybe they would take that trip to the doctor and ask the right questions. Maybe if men realized that the detection of testicular cancer is , in most cases, not a death sentence, then they would stop waiting and start talking to their health care providers. The fact that most men would rather die than lose their testicles is , I'm sure, a HUGE reason many men keep a tight lip about these issues. But they need to know that ,

First- they remove the testicle from the inside, leaving the sack intact and that in many cases only the removal of one testicle is necessary, and

Second- even if the cancer has spread it is still a highly treatable form of the disease.

EARLY DETECTION IS THE KEY! Yes, I am yelling !

My husband was not diagnosed till he was in early stage three of the non seminomal form of testicular cancer. It infested his lymph system, a tumor( the size of a softball) attatched to his kidney , and of course there was also cancer in his testicle as well. He is now a cancer survivor 7 years in remission. But he missed out on the birth of his only son due to his lack of early detection. He also suffered from acute pancreatitis as a result of the tumors causing his body to stop functioning properly. It was the side effects from the cancer left untreated that almost killed him. It was his fear of a death sentence and loss of manhood that almost killed him-Not the cancer.

My point is this, I feel men should be encouraged to do self exams of their testicles, just as women are asked to do for our breasts. And I think that men need to realize that cancer isn't necessarily a death sentence, but ignoring the problem could be.

Learn more about this author, Danielle Skeldon.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.