NvEoUlMkAeNrN

Read It On My Blog

So it’s been a while. Kinda had my hands full for a bit there, finally found myself a nice Saturday to decompress and just hang around. cook a yummy breakfast, hit some yard sales.

Interesting developments here, and I’m not sure if how to tell this, chronologically, blurt it, like a thriller, like a choose-your-own-story, I’ve got a lot to say…

Here goes something,…

I don’t want any fucking mysteries about all this…

It was maybe a year ago I found two eety-bitty needle-head size hard spots on my left testicle, hmm, they’ll just go away I thought and I’ve got a big trip to plan and I’m not gonna worry about this right now and I’m abuot to bust out of Boston and it’s just too much to worry about…

We are whisked away to a bike ride in Bolivia where I was a bit uncomfortable ‘cause that darned left nut had gotten a bit harder and swollen and after hours of biking was definitely noticeable, I rode on my right butt cheek most of the way down. Hmmm, something’s definitely up, shit, but I’m in Bolivia and will be back in the states in a month, ok, let’s ride this out.

Back in the US, the problem persisted, I was trying to figure out what to do about it all getting antsy to go see a doctor but medical fees were frightening me, when I got a job offer out here in San Fran that was perfect because I wanted to move out here anyway and it meant some insurance so I could get my little affliction taken care of.

So insurance came through. I made an appointment with a doc and he referred me to get an scrotal ultrasound and go see a urologist… another few weeks pass and I finally get to see the urologist last Thursday.

He examines me and says there’s a 95% chance of testicular cancer given my symptoms. Either way he’d have to give me an orchiectomy because the odds of a malignant tumor are so high and they need to do a pathology report on the tissue anyway, plus it was good getting this growing brick out from between my legs.

“The sooner the better” he said. “Doing anything this weekend?”

So I signed up to meet him at the office at 2:30pm on Friday.

I spent most of the evening on the phone with relatives, slept a good sleep, took friday off of work and ha me a nice lazy morning. Coffeeshops. Mellow walk around the neighborhood. Some yummi Sushi. Once at the office I was shuttled around to do an EKG to make sure my heart was ok for general anesthesia, some blood tests (AFP and Beta-HCG) and a chest X-Ray.

These test are basically designed to let the docs diagnose what I’ve got and how far it’s spread. Whee… So I was supposed to get the surgery at about 5pm but had never had surgery and didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to eat for 6 hours before. Crap. We had to push back to 8pm. I could have watched the Prez debate but I wasn’t really in the mood. I was more intent on thinking. Pondering. Relaxing.

At 8:30 it was time, I got some stuff squirted into my blood stream and became very sleepy. I awoke shivering though I wasn’t cold. They put something else in to my blood stream and I stopped shivering. The doc said he’s see me in the morning and soon I was carted away to my room where another guy was waiting.

We were quite the spectacle. A 35 and a 27 year old sharing a room in the hospital. Our total age was probably less than that of most other individual patients on the floor. The nurses kept making comments about that, we were the Kindergarten :)

I slept a morphinated sleep, the only painkiller I took in the hospital stay. After that it was just bedrest for me, no more drugs. Saturday I waited a long time to get a CT Scan that helps determine if Ihave any abnormally large lymh nodes in my body, signs of cancerous advancement. I also got injected with some radioactive isotope that penetraded around my bones for a scan later in the day. I got to see an image of my skeleton on the screen. That was totally worth the 30 minutes of lying still :)

My belly was hurting,in nurse-speak I wasn’t moving my bowels or passing gas and since I can’t much demand anything of my roomates and the insurance would cover it I ended up staying in the hospital until Monday morning when I had started farting and pooping again. Yay Poop!!!

I took Tuesday off work and started heading in again on Wednesday afternoon. I’ve been kinda doped up though not getting a lot done but it’s good to stay in the loop being that we’re starting a new phase of the project.

I heard from the urologist and it turns out I’ve got Seminoma, a type of cancer cell, well hopefully it’s all gone now after the initial operation but there’ll probably be a radiation therapy treatment to eradicate any holdout malignant cells. There’s no sure way of knowing if they’ve spread so it’s best to Kill’ Em All! My dad (being a doctor) has gotten all the charts faxed to him in Germany and is consulting some specialists there so it’ll be like getting a second opinion.

So now I’m lying here cause sitting still hurts a little bit. Can’t lift nuthin’. Got half my pubes shorn off and coered by a plastic layer so I can actually take a shower and I pop a Vicodin if it hurts too much.

I was gonna rant about the health system where you have to put off getting something treated until you are insured and then it just gets more extreme and even puts you in danger but I’m getting hungry and am about to dart off into the kitchen to make me some yummy miso soup. Mhhhhhh.

I feel good. This is all a slight stumbling block but there’s no good reason I should not be able to move through it and be kickin’ it around just like before, but well, with one less nut. It feels weird having a prosthetic nut but I guess it’s better than none at all, and hey, imagine the pick-up lines ;)

O yeah, wanna see something gross ?

Posted by volker at October 16, 2004 09:10 PM