TRANSCRIPT
When it got to the point where I was uncomfortable enough that I thought something needed to be done, the doctor I talked to was pretty clear that the only option was surgery.
Treatment options they offered me was chemotherapy. And I read up on chemotherapy. I've had family members that went through chemotherapy. I was freaking out.
I did see the radiation oncologist here at David Grant Medical Center. He fully explained to me how radiation is used to deal with prostate cancer.
He also told me that for someone like me with early low level cancer there is very little benefit, if any benefit, to surgery or radiation.
Calls me up and he goes, "We've decided to go with a treatment plan with you with your lymph nodes being enlarged and then being on your left side, seeing how it was your left side that was affected with cancer." So I go, "Okay."
So, we are going to try with my cancer a passive process. What the urologist called "active surveillance."
He said, "Well, here's the options: we can do nothing. Or we can do this, what they call TURP."
In the end I made up my mind. The surgery was much more efficient at dealing with prostate cancer. The radiation had too many side effects.
Over a period of time it started feeling like a hernia. I thought yeah, let's do the surgery.
So, before the radiation they have to remove the cancerous testicle.
I had some hesitation as far as leading up to it.
One of the biggest concerns was I was scared that it wasn't going to work afterwards.
The nervousness you know. With any surgery you don't want to be put under. You think of all the bad things that could happen.
When I was going into the surgery, I was kind of freaking out 'cause I didn't know if I was going to be able to have kids. And I was just... I didn't know what was going to happen.
I felt very reassured as they were actually preparing me for the surgery. The whole team that was treating me made me feel very assured that everything was going to be fine.
The day of the surgery everything really early goes without a hitch.
They just put me on the happy fluid, or whatever. I don't remember what it was called. And I'm like, kind of like you know, getting "ah yeah" about to pass out. And I remember the same doctor walked in, my urologist. And he had a little sheet and he's like, "Oh so, which testicle was it?" And I pass out.
I wake up the next morning. I was, I got released that day out of the hospital. I was a little groggy waking up, but everything was good to go.
Radiation I went for, it was 15 days spread out over three weeks. Once everyday during the week, during weekdays.
You just think like, I don't want to deal with this anymore. And it's pretty bad, but if you don't have that support or that motivation or, you know, trying to be uplifted by your own personality or your own sense of humor or any type of emotions, you're not going to get through it. You just got to keep fighting and keep pushing through it.