Interview 19

Age at interview: 34

Age at diagnosis: 34

Brief Outline: Testicular cancer (seminoma and teratoma) diagnosed in 2001; orchidectomy. No evidence of secondary tumours; no more treatment, but regular monitoring (surveillance).

Background: Software engineer; single, no children.

Remembers that he was terrified when he was diagnosed with cancer.

When I first sort of realised that actually sort of my worst fears had been confirmed I was, I was a complete mess quite frankly. I have never felt such a strong fear in my entire life, so far as I was concerned I was going to die and I'm only 34 (laughs), I'm too young to die. And just trying to get that out of my head took quite a lot of effort, it just, I don't think I really got it out of my head until after the operation. I was absolutely petrified. It is the worst feeling you can ever have in the world, it really is because if you're going to die the best way to go is (clicks fingers) like that. My grandfather died of a heart attack in his sleep, if I go that's how I want to go. He never knew about it. With cancer you know about it, it can take, it can take, it can take years and it's not the most pleasant way to go, it can be extremely painful. I mean just watching my mother go was not, you know that was hard. And I had that reminder constantly and as soon as you know, as soon as I was diagnosed as being cancer I thought that's it, I'm going the same way that my mother went.
 

Explains that he found humour in the office helpful.

The guys at work know what's happened and I've actually found that actually letting them know about it, some of them are you know, various people deal with it in different ways but basically I treat it as a joke. You want to hear some of the humour (laughs)

Yeah, I find that if you're going to deal with anything the best way to deal with it is to talk about it. There are, and not sort of bottle it up and take it too seriously, if you go 'oh dreadful, I'm not going to do this, oh it's terrible, I can't talk about this.'

So the humour and the jokes has been helpful rather than ?

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean it's probably not everyone's cup of tea but certainly for me I found that er being totally open about it and just turning the entire episode into one grand joke in various places you know. And not to extremes, to excess but certainly there's been, someone will make a remark which might have a sort of a double entendre if you like with relation to my particular condition and rather than get uptight about it I just crack up (laughs). And I guess the rest of them are cracking up as well. Okay there's this one guy who usually goes "Oh no!" but that just makes it even better (laughs).

And as I say I enjoy a good joke as much as anybody else so hey if I'm the butt of it well what the hell (laughs), I'll take the mickey out of myself as much as I'll take the mickey out of anyone else, I think you have to. Basically you can't go through life without a sense of humour.
 

Recalls that his illness pulled the family together.

What sort of general impact has it had on the wider family?

I think it actually pulled us all together again. Geographically we're actually scattered to the four winds. My father is reasonably close but my two sisters are sort of you know a couple of hours drive away each. And then there's sort of my cousins and aunts that uncles and aunts. Actually I've had more contact with them as a result of this than I've had for years. It's sort of faded away again now but (laughs) I really ought to get round to sort of you know trying to keep in touch again. I think they were incredibly supportive they, because this wasn't the first time we'd had cancer in the family I think part of, they'd been through some of it before anyway and they just suddenly sprang up from nowhere. I had cards coming through my letterbox like it was going out of fashion (laughs). I think the postman was certainly earning his money.
 

Explains that he had the information he needed and asserts that too much information can be depressing.

But as I say the, I found, I had the information I wanted. To go rooting around, finding out even more was actually just depressing. What I actually wanted to do was concentrate on the rest of my life. 

I'd been told everything I wanted to know. Sometimes too much detail is, actually that doesn't help, it just makes you focus on, I think the most important part actually is basically to pick up the rest of your life and get on with it. You can focus too much on the problem and if you, if your entire life is concentrated on focussing on just that disease then actually you're not getting on, you're not moving on, you just, it becomes like a mental cancer, it just eats away at you. It just chips away at your spiritual resolve and you end up becoming a complete nervous wreck. Well I wasn't going to allow that to happen I'm afraid, I'm a stubborn old sod (laughs). I was going to get on with life. I just said, "Right it's being dealt with, I'm going to get on with the rest of my life and whatever happens is going to happen. And I'll deal with the various bits and pieces as they happen. And if I need to have chemotherapy I'll deal with it then. If I don't need it well fine what's the point in dwelling on it."
 

Describes his feelings when he had to wait for his CT results.

And then when I was actually seeing him what happened was he was saying "Right okay, oh you know we haven't got your test results you know they won't be in yet," but we said "Okay you know when you get them can you call us. Here is the telephone number," making absolutely sure he had the right telephone number. He said, "Oh yeah we will call you." 

Surprisingly enough no telephone call happened. I rang up various secretaries to try and find out and got very little, well help. I was then told that you know, when I finally got through "Oh the computers are down." I thought yeah if I had a penny for every time I've been told that I'd be a rich man and as I work in computers I know quite a lot more about them than most of the people who are giving me this as a lame excuse. 

And that particular, it was just the way that particular episode was handled, actually it completely destroyed me because I didn't know what was going on, I was being told completely contradictory information. I mean first off yeah they're saying "Yeah okay yeah get that, we'll have all your results and have your CT scans, we'll have this, that and the other," and then they go "Who are you?" pretty much. Which you know, what the hell am I doing wasting my time here for? 

And that, I mean at the time I'd just come out of the hospital, didn't, still didn't know whether it had spread, or whether there was any danger of it you know and this is what the results were supposed to tell me, whether it had gone anywhere, whether it was going, whether I was going to need any more treatment or not. You know this was the most crucial set of results and they completely messed it up. And I was a complete, I was a wreck by the time I'd come out of that which is unfortunate. As I say it was actually only the one incident, the rest of the time all of the staff were absolutely fantastic.
 

Recalls that the consultant explained everything very well.

Before we turned the tape over I said, 'Did you get any particular support at the hospital?' and you said the specialist was very supportive.

Yeah, he knew his subject exceedingly well, he knew how, I think his best attribute was the fact that he knew how to talk to a patient, he knew how to put, he was very, very good at putting you at ease. He knew what he was talking about, he didn't try hiding any information from me that I didn't want to know. If I asked a question I got the answer for it. And it was, but it wasn't sort of in techno-babble it was in plain English. And I, I can't remember half of what he said now because my emotional state was so completely and utterly up the creek that most of it went straight in one ear and straight out the other but that's why I had my father and my sister there. My father was sort of a bit of moral support and my sister understood what the hell he was talking about. But having them there made a lot of difference. But just him explaining things very patiently, that there was absolutely, when I walked in his office I had his total undivided attention and there was no, when I was in that room he was the only person I was dealing with, end of story.
 

Explains that the area below his scar has been slightly numb since the operation.

And you say it still feels a little bit numb at times?

The area, around that area it's not, it's not totally numb. Immediately after the operation it was really weird, it was, it felt slightly swollen if you like er slightly puffy and totally numb, there was absolutely no feeling there at all.

The scar?

This was the scar and everything below the scar, going down into the scrotum. That entire area which is probably, it's probably about a couple of inches sort of long, deep rather, that entire area is still slightly numb to the touch. It's not quite, it's an odd sensation but it's certainly not a problem, there's enough feeling in there to carry on doing anything that I would want to do.
 

Says that if he were naked it would be fairly obvious to others that he had lost a testicle.

For other men who might be wondering is it very obvious? Say you were in the shower with a lot of other guys after a game of football or something, would it be obvious that you'd only one testicle there?

Probably I think, I'm not actually sure; I mean it's certainly obvious to me. I mean it certainly doesn't hang the same way as it used to, shall we say. So I think it's, it's not absolutely, it doesn't sort of stand out, sort of going, "Hey look I've only got one in there," but I mean it wouldn't take an awful, much more than a cursory examination to realise, hang on it's not quite a full packet (laughs).
 

Asserts that having cancer made him appreciate life.

Did it have any other affects on your life at that time?

Actually yeah it did, it gave me a rocket up the backside basically (laughs) and actually got me out of a rut. Because I suddenly realised actually hang on a sec you know I'm just wandering, idling through life. Suddenly I had this massive kick up the backside saying get on with life and actually start doing something. As I say I've just got back from Egypt. I might not have done that if this hadn't happened, it actually opened my eyes up, said you know life is actually worth living, live it, don't just exist. You've actually got to appreciate its not, there's an old adage that you don't appreciate thing's until you risk losing it and life, as soon as you actually realise that actually you know you're not going to live forever you suddenly go, hang on a second, life is just wandering past, do something with it, get off your backside and actually enjoy it, put something into it. And yeah actually so in that respect it's actually had a positive influence.