Untitled Page

Armed with my ultrasound films, which I picked up from the radiology department of my local hospital, I arrived at the urologist’s office. After some delay due to the fact he was performing emergency surgery he examined me and checked the ultrasound pictures. My right testicle was firmer than the left and the ultrasound pictures clearly showed a mass about 2.5 cm long within the testicle. He said it could be cancer although it could also be benign and that the testicle should be removed. I had already done some research on the subject and knew that the majority (approx. 95%) of masses found in the testicle were malignant. The urologist sent me to get blood drawn for tumor markers.

On the following Tuesday February 27th, I arrived at the local hospital for outpatient surgery (radical inguinal orchiectomy). A few days previously I had undergone a preadmission physical and chest x-ray .The chest looked clean and the blood test showed that I had no elevated tumor markers. This sounded good to me. More research on the web had led me to the Testicular Cancer Resource Center (TCRC) web site, where I had learned about the two main types of testicular cancer - seminoma and non-seminoma - along with their related treatments. It sounded like I might have seminoma, but only the pathology report later would tell.

Surgery went smoothly and I awoke with some pain. I was given some medication and slept for about 2 hours after surgery. Try as I might I could not go to the bathroom and was eventually released later in the afternoon. My wife drove me home. It is amazing how bumpy a road feels with stitches holding your abdomen together! That night I went to the bathroom about every 1-2 hours, like I had an enlarged prostate!!!!!
Moving around after surgery was somewhat painful and I tried to minimize any movement for the first few days. The pathology came back a couple of days later as a pure seminoma although the slides were automatically sent away for a second opinion. I had read more about the treatments for non-seminoma, which included some pretty major surgery (RetroPeritoneal Lymph Node Dissection or RPLND) so I was "relived" about the pathology report! .