May 19, 2016: 

After surgery I had a few follow-up tests to verify if the cancer had spread beyond the initial tumor.  Unfortunately the pathology did show that there was a strong possibility that it had spread into my lymphatic system.  Today we are set to meet with Dr. Ben Downie of the Austin Cancer Center Georgetown.  He had all the results from the CT scan and chest X-rays.  The good news was that the X-rays appeared to be clear.  However, I had 2 lymph nodes that were slightly enlarged right where the Doctor would expect them to be with this type of cancer.  My family and I felt really comfortable with Dr. Downie and his staff.  He was able to answer every question we had and believe me we asked a ton.  We made the decision to move forward quickly with his course of action.

I was told I have stage IIA testicular cancer and now the next step in my treatment plan would be BEPx3 chemotherapy. BEP is the shortened version of the 3 chemo drugs I’ll receive.  B stands for:  bleomycin, E: etoposide, P: cisplatin.  For more information please go here: Cancer.org I will have 3 cycles of chemotherapy done over a 9 week period.   Week 1: 5 days of chemotherapy followed by 2 weeks off then the cycle repeats itself 2 more times.  It’s a very aggressive and “old school” treatment plan that has over a 90% cure rate.  All in all the odds are very much in my favor to come out of this situation and to be cured of the cancer.  It’s still scary to think about what I’ll feel like during the chemo treatments but I just need to remain focused on the end game.

I’m scheduled to begin treatment Tuesday May 31, 2016.  That would give me an additional week of recovery time from the surgery.  It also gives me another week of fearing the known unknowns of what the treatment will be like.  How bad will I feel, what type of energy level will I have, how much of a burden I might be on Jennifer and my family.  These type of worries seem to come and go at different times throughout the day.