Chemo-sabe
Riding high after receiving such good news from all my doctors, Shannon and I started to settle back into our normal routines. After a whirlwind couple of months, it felt nice to take a step back and relax a little bit. It felt touch and go there, with the “will I or won’t I?” have to go through chemo, but things were looking very good, the holidays were coming up and it was going to be able to spend them with friends and family and celebrate this win over cancer. We decided to try to start building better eating habits and getting back into working out again since we hadn’t done much of that over the past couple of months. As expected, it wasn’t the easiest task to start with probably the biggest eating holidays looming on the horizon. My next blood draw was on November 12th, 2021, and we had our follow up on the 17th to go over the results. When the 17th rolled around, he informed us that all my tumor markers were in at their normal levels which was very good. He did say that my iron levels were a little low, so he was prescribing me some more red meat in my diet, which in my opinion was an absolute win. I mean how often does your doctor tell you to eat more red meat?!? We left there my next blood draw scheduled for December 13th and a tele-conference follow up on the 16th to go over the results. Leaving there only continued to let Shannon and I fall into a comfortable mindset. We really started to feel like we could put all of this behind us. We go about our normal business as usual. My drill weekend comes up the weekend before Thanksgiving, and it was a 3-day drill, so I was there from Thursday night until Sunday night. On Friday afternoon I get a call from the doctors from the other hospital where we were getting a 3rd opinion from. They just wanted to call and see how I was doing, what I decided to do, and to let me know that their pathology lab gave them a more detailed breakdown of my tumor. It was 10-15% yolk sac, 35-40% embryonal carcinoma, and 45-50% teratoma. They were relieved to hear we opted for active observation but recommended a ct scan in January instead of February like we had already scheduled. Thanksgiving finally arrives, and we split time between both of our families, and without fail we overindulged in all of the tasty foods that were available to us. The more the days passed, the more it felt like we were truly going to go back to normal.
December 13th finally arrives, and its my first blood draw in about a month. I wasn’t too thrilled to being poked again but I knew it was something I had to do. As usual it takes only a minute to do and I’m on my way. I was supposed to get a phone call on the 16th around 1:30 pm but that phone call never arrives. I figured maybe no news was good news and if something was wrong, they’d reach out to me. Boy did this come back to bite me in the ass. 6 days later, December 22nd, I get a phone call at 9 at night. It was my oncologist. I knew this couldn’t be good.
“Hey Henry, I just wanted to call to check in on you. You were supposed to come in last Thursday, but you were a no show.”
“Oh, when we scheduled it, it was supposed to be a tele-conference and if it changed, I was never informed. So, I was waiting for a call but never got one.”
“I am so sorry for that confusion. I wanted to go over your blood work results from the 13th with you. We saw a spike in your HCG levels, so I want you to come in tomorrow and get some blood work done.”
That wasn’t the news I had wanted to hear. The next day, I let work know that there was a spike in one of my tumor markers and I would have to leave a little early to go get my blood drawn that day. After I got my blood drawn, I was just sitting at home thinking about it. I decided to do exactly what you’re not supposed to do and started Googling things. Through my deep dive on the web, I learned that HCG is also known as the pregnancy hormone and not just a tumor marker for testicular cancer. While reading about this I read a story about some male teenager finding out he had testicular cancer because he was messing around and peed on a pregnancy test, and it said he was pregnant. Now if you truly know me, you know that the second I read that, there was only one thing for me to do. I had to go and put it to the test. I head on over to CVS and pick up some pregnancy tests. I rush on home so I could conduct my little science experiment. I rip open a test and proceed to pee on it. I cap it and I put it on the counter and just watch it. I see my urine being absorbed as it travels up the strip. Slowly but surely a blue cross filled the little screen. The absurdity of that moment completely made me forget that it was probably not a good sign that I was showing up pregnant. Nonetheless, I had to show my friends, and to nobody’s surprise I could’ve given a little more context behind the picture I sent out because literally everyone thought that Shannon and I were expecting a baby. Lesson learned (probably not though).
The picture that cause mayhem. Next time I’ll explain a little more beyond just “Guess which one I peed on”
With Christmas being in 2 days, I figured it would be better getting the news out to my family now so that I’m not bearing bad news on Christmas day. I wanted to make sure that everyone know that it could be nothing so we should manage our expectations but try to think as positively as possible. On Christmas day, I recounted my adventure with the pregnancy test to my whole family which got a lot of laughs. It felt like we all had this unspoken agreement to just try to make the best of the situation and not dwell on what could happen in the near future, just be present in the moment and be happy. On December 29th. I finally get a call back with the results from my last blood draw. He tells me that my tumor marker is still on the rise, it was at 100 mlu/mL from December 13th and was now 170 mlu/mL from the 23rd, when it should be below 5 mlu/mL. Which meant that we were going to have to schedule a ct scan as soon as possible and determine what to do from there. This is when I started to prepare for the worst mentally. I knew this was the gamble that we had decided to take. We tried going without chemo, but it seemed like that wasn’t the right call. The next day was my 29th birthday. Not the best news for your birthday, but again I was trying to stay positive. I mean we had our last wedding of the year to look forward to, and the best part was that finally neither one of us was a part of this one. So, on my birthday, December 30th, 2021 we load up the truck and begin the 5 and a half hour drive down to New Jersey. During this drive I got the phone call that my ct scan would be January 11th with a follow up on the 13th to go over the results. So once again we decide to make the best of the moment that we were in. We did our best to not think about what was going on and we enjoyed our first New Year’s Eve wedding. We caught up with friends, met some more new ones and just celebrated life. It had been a long year so far, full of ups and downs. But I was there with Shannon, the love of my life. I felt like had really tested our relationship in the past few months and she was still there by my side. She was supporting me when I needed it most. I will forever be grateful that she came into my life.
We started the new year off by driving 5 and half hours back home. I know super exciting, right? Well, we get home and settled back in getting ready for the first week of work in the new year. We had some excitement on the next morning when our cat, Bruce, found a mouse and chased it all throughout the house into the bedroom, giving Shannon quite the scare. Which scared me because she screamed bloody murder and I came running. It all worked out in the end, the mouse was removed, and nobody got hurt in the high stress situation. The next day we both go to work, hoping to get the new year started on a good note, but that was short lived. About halfway through the day I started to get body aches and a headache. I thought it was just the cold weather getting to me. Once again, I was wrong. On my way home I felt like I got hit by a bus. When Shannon got home and saw me, she knew something was wrong with me. We decided it was best if we took some take home covid tests. Luckily, she tested negative, me not so much. I started the new year off with getting covid. 2022 was not looking too good so far. To be honest though, for me, covid wasn’t that bad. I never lost my sense of taste or smell. I only had a headache, body aches, and a sore throat. All of which I was able to treat with Mucinex and Advil. By the end of the week, I felt completely fine like nothing ever happened. So, I returned to work the next week and tried to stay focused as best as I could, but it kind of felt like impending doom was on the horizon for me. I go on Tuesday morning, January 11th, 2022, for my ct scan, which was quite the waiting process. I’m assuming since this was a little bit of a last-minute scheduling, that my orders got messed up because they only had me scheduled for a chest ct scan instead of a chest, abdomen, and pelvic ct scan. After waiting some more it was eventually sorted out and I was taken care of. I honestly can’t even remember the next day even though it was only last week. It just feels like a blur, so finally the 13th arrives. The hospital changed their guest policy, which meant Shannon had to wait in the car until I was called into the appointment room. When they finally called my name, I hurriedly shot off a text to Shannon for her to come on in. While I was in the room waiting for the doctor, I felt strangely calm. I knew what he was going to tell me. I knew exactly what was causing the tumor marker to spike. I don’t know how I knew, but I just knew. A few minutes go by, and then there’s a knock on the door. He walks in, sits down, and looks at both of us. “Well, I’m sorry to say this, but you need chemo.” Remember those lymph nodes they kept telling me were slightly enlarged but nothing to be concerned about? Well, it was those fuckers that were behind all of this. They became larger, which meant they were infected with cancer. He tells us that I’m looking at 3-4 cycles of chemo of either a two-drug combination, or a three-drug combination known as BEP (Bleomycin, Etoposide, Cisplatin (Platinum)). He continues to go over all the side effects of chemo, and to be honest it almost feels better to try and take your chances with cancer after hearing the list. I must undergo a surgery to have a port put into my chest to save my veins in my arms from being burned from the drugs. This port is the sticking point for my chemo to start, once they can get me into the operating room for this port, soon after it’ll be go time. I sign my life away on the chemo consent form, and introduced to the nurse practitioner coordinator who will be scheduling all of my upcoming appointments, and then they poke me again for some more blood.
And that pretty much brings up to present day. I am currently in a weird waiting period to find out when this next step starts for me. All I can do now is get my ducks in a row as best I can to prepare for it. I hope you will continue to follow along with my journey, because it is just getting started. I know that these next 3 or 4 months will be quite challenging, but I also hope to bring a lot of awareness to testicular cancer and men’s health in that time!