Thanks again to everyone for the well-wishes. I made it through the surgery and just got home a few minutes ago. The doctor says everything went according to textbook. Hurts like hell right now, but I’m really happy to be back in my bed, especially since I got virtually no sleep last night.
The doctor thinks we’ll get pathology results back sometime next week, but his “gut” is still that it’s seminoma, which would be the best malignancy we could hope for.
And I cannot say enough how fortunate I am to have wonky by my side through this, for both the physical and emotional support. She is just unbelievable.
Alright. I’m drugged up, got a little bit of food in me, and am comfortably under the covers. I’m going to see if I can get some sleep. I hope everyone else is having a good day!
Well, it has been a strange ride, but it turns out I did not have cancer.
Both the initial pathology report and the more detailed addendum from Johns Hopkins confirmed an exceedingly rare (only a few cases ever reported in the medical literature) but benign tumor. I apparently had something called “testicular fibrothecoma.” No reported case of this tumor has ever turned out to be malignant to date, and neither my urologist nor Johns Hopkins even sees a need for me to have any follow-up down the road. I’ve been set free.
I am obviously grateful to not have cancer, and to not have to worry about going through radiation or chemotherapy. Still, it has been very strange to have my life completely uprooted out of the blue one day, to be on an operating table a week later, and then to suddenly be told, “Nope, nevermind. You’re fine. Have a nice life.” I feel a bit like I’ve been through an alien abduction. I’m still healing a bit from the surgery—I seem to be on the slower side of that. I’m supposed to go back to work next week. Like nothing ever happened, I guess. Other than being a testicle lighter than I used to be.
Thanks to everyone who read and/or contributed to the thread.
Glad to hear the good news, and hope it’s not too much longer before you’re fully recovered from the surgery!
*Seriously, we should have one, one of these days.
