The Why

Short Story:  

July 11^th 2019.  The day I was diagnosed with testicular cancer.  

Fuck Cancer. 

I’ve tried to find a better, more verbose way to say it.  

There’s no other way. Fuck Cancer. Seriously. 

Long Story:  
 
Back in May of 2019 I found a lump. 

I went to my primary care doctor who was optimistic; but referred me for an ultrasound as a precaution.  Due to life and nerves, I waited over a month to set the actual appointment.  

Ultrasounds suck. Plain and simple.  

Ultrasound technicians don’t have poker faces either.  

As soon as the scan began, her face dropped.  

I knew.  

3 days later. July 11^th 2019 It was confirmed.   
 
As I’m sitting in the waiting room waiting to hear the next steps I get a phone call.  

“Hi this is Overlake hospital, are you ready for your surgery tomorrow?” 

That’s how I found out.  

The next day, 24 hours after my diagnosis, I was in surgery. Fortunately, we caught it early (Stage 1), no additional treatment was needed, and by the end of July I was in remission, cleared for light activity. I traveled for the next month and even managed to train enough to finish my first Olympic triathlon. In under 3 hours! I was healed! 

Physically. 

Mentally I was wrecked. I was using humor as a coping mechanism, drinking too much, lost my self-esteem and self-respect, and was behaving recklessly. Good days were good but bad days involved finding conference rooms at work to cry in, pushing friends and family away, and struggling to get out of bed. Every pain or ache meant cancer and chemo and I struggled to keep my head above water at work. 

I honestly wouldn’t have made it through this time without the support of my manager, friends, and family. 

Going into the end of 2019 I was finally starting to make a little bit of progress.  

Enter 2020…. God damn 2020…  

January: 2 new managers, a knee injury, and the 6 month CT scan.  

I hate CT scans.  

Fluid that makes you nauseous (even when flavored with raspberries) Iodine that makes you feel like you’re on fire, and an increase in my lifetime cancer risk from other cancers.  

Each one also brought new questions and doubts and sent me back into depression. 

The Jan CT scan results came back and while there was no sign of anything major, there was a nodule on my lung that looked worrisome. We’d check back in 6 months to see if anything changed.  

By February I finally had my roadmap – Birthday in Vegas for March Madness to celebrate the end of a long year being 26, a half ironman in June, a summer of hiking and hanging out with friends, a backpacking trip to Patagonia in September, and then a work trip to India for a couple months.  

Covid had other ideas.  

All my plans gone and with it the superficial activities I had tied to my mental recovery.  

Oh and a global pandemic that made it so I couldn’t see most of my support network and family.  

I was struggling.  

Hard. 

I stopped exercising, barely leaving my apartment. Avoided Friends. My work progress fell to just getting the minimum done and surviving.  

Then I found out my dad’s brain tumor was back. 

I couldn’t catch a fucking break.  

Sometimes life just punches you in the face so many times you don’t think you can get up. Fortunately, this final hit was what woke me up and forced me to realize I needed a bigger change.  

I started making productive decisions.  

I was finally healing.  

I forced myself to face all the feelings that I had hidden from and with no way to redirect that emotion I was able to start processing. Realizing that this was hard. Understanding that I made mistakes. Forgiving myself. Figuring out who I wanted to be. Committing to taking the steps to be that person.  

It was a huge step forward for me.  

But as with everything in life. Roadblocks never truly stop.  

Over the next six months, I lost my grandmother, aunt, and uncle. And the fatigue from WFH through the short winter days made me decide that I needed to take 2 months off work to reset. 

Then the final straw. A new nodule on my lung.  

It’s probably not cancer, it’s probably nothing bad at all. But life is too short for me to be wrong.  

While I’m healthy and able, I’m going to go do as many awesome things as I can think of.  

And enjoy every single day.