My journey started in September 2022.
First things first…
when you notice an achy bulge the size of a large chicken nugget surrounding your testicle, you definitely know something is not normal. As soon as we noticed, I immediately thought it was cancer.
Might seem dramatic, but it’s all I could think about. Desiree (my wife/partner) tried to make an appointment for me, but I would not be able to see a doctor until the first week of October. This was the first time I had really dealt with our medical and insurance system. The weeks seemed to melt away. Everyday Des and myself had to sort out finding the proper coverage, finding a provider that would be appropriate, contacting specialists, find someone in my network, researching facilities, reading reviews, and getting offices to respond.
I’d had one doctor tell us he was 99% sure it was not cancer. It took two weeks from there to see a radiologist. To make matters a zillion times more stressful when we finally did get in with a radiologist, they decided to tell me I needed to follow up as soon as possible with any doctor because this did not look good. Normally radiologist are not allowed to give any sort of opinion. Any hint of doubt that this was that it was not cancer seemed to get thrown right out the window.
Some of you may be familiar with my past, but for those of you who are not, my best friend/brother/bromigo Ernesto Llerenas passed away from testicular cancer. You’d probably guess my ass was extremely stressed out. I knew that with cancer, time is extremely important. Every month, every week, hell every day things can change, and they can change very rapidly. We had just burned through about a month and a half of time and my mass was becoming bigger and the pain had spread up my sides and down my legs. All the while I was still working 5-6 days a week.
We finally met with the Urologist Dr. Rosenberg in November. He immediately wanted to remove the mass/testicle. I was definitely all for this and wanted this thing out of me as soon as possible. I cannot stress how much I meant AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Unfortunately, again due to the way things work I would not be able to have the procedure ‘til December 2nd. We had to be patient.