If you’ve got balls, check them now

I had a bit of a weird summer. I took 4 weeks off work and watched the Paris Olympics from morning to night. I barely left the sofa.

As much as I loved watching every single round of every event (minus the horseplay of course), my reasons for this Olympic sit in was because I was recovering from unexpected surgery.

Bake Off

A few months before on the eve of a family holiday we were watching the SU2C Celebrity Bake Off.

While I have always kept an eye on my body, something in the show encouraged me to give myself a little check.

What’s that? I thought to myself…probably nothing, not sure. But there was something, probably nothing though.

Getting to see my GP took a while. Getting the GP referral for a scan took a while longer but this was the longest part of the journey, things were about to speed up.

Ultrasound

Getting and ultrasound is always the first step apparently. They can tell quite a lot from this but can’t confirm or deny cancer. Just confirm that there is or isn’t something there that looks suspect.

Communication become more frequent after that, I got a call at 9am the day after the ultrasound. Yep, there’s something there…I need to see a specialist…tomorrow.

Urology

I headed to the urology department to see a specialist. It wasn’t the most normal situation getting your parts inspected while your wife watches on but it served as a good source of comedy later.

They said I had a testicular tumour and talked to me about what they were going to do.

If you have two at the time, they don’t mess about with doing a biopsy when it comes to testicles.

While there are many many causes for lumps and bumps a lot of the non-cancerous cysts etc would have been ruled out earlier in the process. At this point it felt pretty likely it was something more serious.

The specialist informed me that this was indeed “the best cancer a man can get” which was strangely reassuring. I potentially had the Gillette of cancer.

I got booked in for an operation that would take place in the next 7–10 days. Wow. They were just going to take the whole thing out – which also served as some comedic relief about the Albert Hall while waiting for blood tests and a CT scan. A call back to this moment appeared in Richard Herring’s book “Can I have my ball back” which is the testicular cancer comedy bible.

The operation

The operation is fairly routine for these amazing surgeons. They don’t take it out the way you think they would. They take it out from the groin, my scar looks a bit like I’ve had my appendix out, if they’d accidentally got the wrong side. It must have taken a lot of research to pinpoint the exact place that would be the most painful if sitting down and standing up. Something I wouldn’t be doing much of for a while.

I woke up in what felt like about 5 minutes and was really well looked after by the team at Ashford Hospital (Surrey). They were incredible. They even called me the next day to see how I was getting on. In fact the entire experience was the best I could have hoped for. Thank you NHS!

Recovery

It takes a few days before you can really move without being in a lot of pain. But after that I was able to do impressive feats such as get out of a seat in under 5 minutes. Just enough time to go to the bathroom during handball time outs.

I was pretty swollen, wearing a jockstrap for the first time in my life and sporting some knee-high surgical stockings for 2 weeks. But it did get better, and better.

Although the heal time is about 5 weeks. After a fortnight I could do a bunch of normal stuff, just not for long, or very well.

Post-op appointment

My post-op check with the surgeon started with him re-introducing himself to me. I’m pretty good with faces, I’m often able to place people I met once in a shop 10 years ago… I was always going to remember the guy who removed my testicle forever Danny, forever.

He told me that the post op examination of the ball in question had confirmed it was indeed cancer.

Strangely I wasn’t particularly shocked to hear this. At this point I would have been more shocked to hear that it wasn’t. Despite this I got some great news that there was no sign of any spread whatsoever. Apart from a couple of things to investigate in the next few months, it was over.

Getting it early

My cancer was very early. Stage one. Not only did I have the Gillette of cancer, I had the Gillette of stages.

Something I didn’t know is that it’s unlikely to get testicular cancer in more than one testicle.

Biologically speaking your testicles are like Southend On Sea and the Isle of Sheppy. They are close as the crow flies but if you want to travel between them, you have to go via London. London in this pained analogy is your stomach and or lungs. This is the way testicular cancer spreads, which is why it’s so vital to catch it as soon as possible.

Check yourself

Wherever you know you need to check, testicles or otherwise do it right now.

I’ve spoken to so many testicle owning folks over the last few months that have never checked themselves or rarely do it. If that’s you, this is your moment, right now, no better time. Unless perhaps you are at a family lunch or a business meeting…in which case I will allow you a grace period of 45 minutes.

If you’re not sure what to do the is some great NHS content. I chose the one called check your balls.

The after

I didn’t really have time to think about much while it was happening. I’m starting to think about it now and some things will take longer than others to sink in.

I come away from this more grateful for the people and things in my life, grateful to the NHS for proving an incredible public service, grateful for watching Bake off that night and grateful to come away from this with more of a positive outlook. It could have been much much worse.