I blog, you read.

I am not a phenomenal writer like my wife Denise but I am going to try and use my blog as way to get some of the jumbled shit that is going on in my head out and at the same time get some awareness out there about the subject of Testicular Cancer. If you don’t like the words testicle, balls, nuts, junk or any other word used for the male genitalia you might not want to read further because this entry is going to be FULL of references to my nuts (well, nut).Sunday morning was like any other morning. Denise and I woke up after having a fun evening at a friends Halloween party. No major drinking or anything but just a good time. Oh, and the Ducks had beat USC the previous day and so I was still on the high from that. We were trying to figure out what to have for breakfast and if I remember correctly we went with Eggs and Bacon. Anyways, we had breakfast and were planning on going to see a movie that afternoon.

I started to feel a little crampy in my stomach. It felt like what Denise and I have diagnosed as “poo cramps”. You know those cramps you have when you know you have to have a HUGE bowel movement…well that’s what it felt like. She went to the store, grabbed a laxative for me and we thought nothing more of it.

Two hours later it was worse. It started to become more of an achy pain (not related to “achy breaky heart” pain) that I didn’t feel comfortable with. I took some tylenol and laid on the couch and watched some “Ace of Cakes” hoping that would help. DAMMIT, it didn’t. I then decided to take a shower to just relax and take it easy. I am one of those people that when I am in the shower I like to lay down and always have been that way. I sat down in the shower and noticed that my left testicle was hitting the floor of the shower when sitting which normally doesn’t happen. And just like Dr. Holmes I decided to investigate. Turns out that my left nut was HUGE and very hard and sensitive to the touch. This was FAR from normal.

I got out of the shower and examined myself more in the mirror noticed the size difference was something that just wasn’t right. I told my wife and we immediately went to the ER. I didn’t even have to tell her which ER to go to…she knew.We arrived at the ER and checked myself in. The lady that entered all my information into the computer reminded me of that clown from the movie “SPAWN” but minus all the makeup. She asked me “On a scale from 1 to 10, how is your pain now…with 10 being the worst”. Well, I quoted her a nice “9″ while bent over in pain. She said due to the pain I would be moved up in front of “some people” and would get seen quicker. These “people” that I was being put in front of were the people being OVER dramatic about the swine flu. I am talking the ones that throw anti-bacterial gel on door handles while wearing a mask around the ER. Yeah, so I got pushed in front of “those” people.

We waited our turn, just chatting and talking and trying to keep my mind off the pain. I am gonna say this up front so EVERYONE reading this knows: My wife, Denise Steele, is the best wife in the world. In the last week she has been my nurse, pharmacist, shoulder to cry on, confidant and she has been there for to do ANYTHING I needed. She is a trooper and I am forever grateful to her for her support, compassion and love that she has shown me during this time. I don’t know what I would do without her. Denise, you are my rock. I love you very much.

Okay, so we waited and waited. There were two trauma’s that came to the hospital and those take priority. Well, 2 1/2 hours later my name was called and Denise jumped up and exclaimed “RIGHT HERE!” and began to wheel me back to the room. We probably waited for only 5 minutes and then the doctor came in. Dr. Juarez came in and asked the typical questions and then asked to see my balls. At first I was nervous but figured I gotta let him see them so he can find out what’s wrong. He squeezed, poked and gently felt my balls. Yes, both of them. You gotta have a “control group”.

After that he said they were going to do an Ultrasound to see what exactly was going on. They wheeled me to the Ultrasound room and man was it warm in there. it was also very calm and just a nice room to have you nuts hanging out and have some gel put on them and have them photographed. The Ultrasound tech did her thing and showed us some photos of what she had taken but was in no way making a diagnosis. But she did say that my left nut was “3 times the size” of the right one. That to me didn’t sound good. But as the doctor had told us the testicle could have gotten an infection or gotten twisted, cutting of the circulation to the testicle and causing the pain. So we were hopeful it was something like that.

They wheeled me back to my ER room and about 3 minutes later Dr. Juarez came back. He sat down and said that he had scheduled an appointment with a Urologist the next morning and he would discuss with me further treatment options after surgery and that chemo and radiation might be something I would have to consider.

Uh huh….WAIT. WHAT THE F**K DID YOU SAY? I am sorry, did I hear the word “surgery”? Yes, we did hear the word surgery and all those other scary words.

He gave me some pain meds for the night to get me through till the next day and all my information on my appointment and some other pamphlets/photo copies of some info on Testicular Cancer.

We checked out of the hospital and as we were walking to the car I called my mom. I love my mom to death but she is someone that likes to worry. It’s just who she is. We decided not to call her when we got to the ER until we knew something more. Well, we did know something more and figured it was time to give her a ring.

That is a phone call that I wish I never had to have made. This is pretty much how the conversation went:

Mom: Hi Jason
Jason: Hi mom.
Mom: What’s wrong?
Jason: Well, we just left the ER…
Mom: WHAT’S WRONG? (not yelling but very stern)

I then told her the story and she immediately began to weep. I told her that we don’t know anything beyond what we know now so there is no reason to worry and we have to be strong. She promised me she would and after a few more minutes we said goodbye and that we would talk the next day. However, the way my mom said “I love you” that night on the phone brought me to tears. It is not a phone call that I wish anyone ever has to make.

My wife and I had found out so much information in the last 5 hours that we were just overwhelmed and decided to go home and watch the most recent episode of “Chelsea Lately” and get a good laugh before bed.

We laid down that night not knowing what to expect the next morning but told each other that I was going to be fine and that hopefully the doctor would have some good news. We just didn’t know.

To be continued…

This entry was posted on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 12:57 pm and is filed under Ball Cancer, Denise, Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.