WAITING FOR CHEMO

SEVEN

2006-06-02T03:51:00.000-07:00

Today I went out for a longer walk through the town. While crossing a bridge I was hit on the head by a pidgeon's wings. It was quite a shock. Nothing happend but it was quite a shock. I rememberd the story of a woman swimming in the sea and all of a sudden being surrounded by dolphins. The dolphins would start to hit her in one particular spot on her chest. They kept hitting her until the spot would turn blue. She went to the doctor and it turned out that she had breast cancer. She could be healed because the tumor was caught at an early stage thanks to the dolphins. I asked my girlfriend on her opinion on pidgeons's ability of being able to detect brain tumors. She said no dolphins can do that cause their smart, pidgeons are dumb. Don't worry about it.

SIX

2006-05-16T04:56:00.000-07:00

I have registered to receive emails from a testicular cancer patients list serve. Posting my experience and getting feedback on doctor's comments and adjuvant therapy methods have been of great help to me. This morning I came across a post from a 27 year young guy from Canada. He has been struggeling with cancer for a while now and it looks like even specialists are not able to give him much hope for a cure. The only thing the doctors are able to do, they say, is to stretch things out a bit. He is devasted and lost all hope for survival and energy to live. Most of the days he spends sleeping. A friend of his found a herbalist guy who says he could treat cancer, but he does not believe in this sort of treatments.

What to write to someone like this except wishing him strength to fight the battle? I was not sure. I did not want to make things worse but I also felt I should say something. Other people have encouraged me too in the past and I feel I could have the potential to help him a little bit as well.

This is what I wrote back:

Dear N.

When I heard for the first time that I most likely had Testicular Cancer and that I most urgently needed to remove the testicle I was in shock and felt nothing but fear. This kind of feeling is really intoxicating and mind numbing. I think it is even dangerous. I wish some doctors would be more sensitive to that and chose their words more carefully. The hospital in New York refused to accept my health insurance for the necessary CT Scans, Chest X-Ray and the surgery. I was not able to pay for all of this upfront so I decided with my girlfriend and my parents that the best thing would be to return back to my home country where the insurance would cover everything and do the treatment there. Back home I scheduled a trip. The earliest would be four days later. I bought the tickets.

Those were four hellish days. The pain in the groins seemed to get worse and occur in shorter intervals. My right ball until then grew in size and the scrotal skin around it was very red. It was impossible to ignore and no one was around me to give me medical advice. I was close to paniking.

Then my girlfriend shook me up and told me to calm down and deal with it like a man. (I still can't believe that she used this old fashioned expression...) We don't know what it is for sure, so let's wait until we get the diagnosis from another doctor, she said. Even if it was cancer I would need to want to live in order to survive, I should show some willpower otherwhise the cancer would be stronger.

The same evening she organised a dinner with two close friends of ours in a restaurant in chinatown. I decided that I would not tell them anything about my pain, mostly because I felt uncomfortable and embarrased talking about it but also because I did not want anyone to worry about the condition of my balls. The evening was great. We drank, we ate, we laughed. I love my friends.

The dinner was the only time during those four days in which I forgot about the cancer and did not feel any pain in the groins at all. It was the only time I was relaxed and managed to escape the fear for a couple of hours. A friend of mine from Uruguay once told me that happiness is a medicine. Since this evening I truly believe in this.

-- ER

FIVE

2006-05-12T07:10:00.000-07:00

It is strange that it took me so long but it is only now that I start to feel curious about what my right testicle has had to go through after we have been separated. What have they done to it? did they open it up release it from this ugly tumor inside it? Did they keep it in some liquid container in some oncology laboratory trying to keep it alive and do medical research on it? Or did they just trash it after the autopsy? I'm curious how they old boy feels about me leaving him with this disease. Disapointed? Left behind? What is the reason that they can't just take out the tumor and put the testicle back inside? In case you should ever get to read this my good old friend, you gave me a lot of pleasure and I miss you a lot. I hope they removed you from my scrotum with the respect and dignity you deserved. May you rest in peace.

FOUR

2006-05-08T14:24:00.000-07:00

Should I or should I not break the news to my friends about my testicular cancer? Besides my family, my girlfriend and my boss no one knows about it. I could go on like nothing happend and get away with it.

"I felt a little sick for the past 2 months" or "I had some health issues and needed to sort things out" - Are those lies? It's 50% true and 50% not quite the whole truth. If I tell people won't I receive encouragement and help from my friends? Do I want that? Even though it might be nice to get anyway I don't really need their encouragement, it's kind of too late for that. I am cured. The problem I foresee is that such news spreads really fast. Why? Cause it's a great Story! "Did you hear about Eric?" - "His balls?" - "Yes" - "Do you think he can still fuck?" - I'm sure people want to know so bad how it feels.

The moment the pain from the operation was bareable, which was about 4 of 5 days later, I doublechecked whether those doctors didn't mess up with my banana, my source of intimate pleasure. The cutbacks in the engine department are barely noticeable.

I don't want people to feel uncomfortable around me if they hear about my cancer from someone else and I dont' want to avoid the subject either, I definitely don't want to lie about it. What I really want is to see the faces of my friends when I tell them. It's a very childish thought but it reminds me of the feeling when you can go home with a grade A+ when you're 10 years old. You thought I was just laying on my lazy ass but no I struggeled with fucking cancer and I fucking made it!

THREE

2006-05-07T14:15:00.000-07:00

While watching television today I suddenly felt a short sharp pain above the left groin. I instantely felt fear rushing through my veins. Three months ago I felt a similar pain in the other groin when I was having brunch with my friends in the East Village, I was eating eggs benedicts, and 5 hours later I was in the emergency room where three doctors were examining my balls. Cancer doesn't hurt, once my father said, that's why they always discover it late. My girlfriend has a very relaxed attitude about pain: "Why it's normal, it comes and goes and suddenly it's gone, never comes back..." Well when I feel pain, I feel fear.

Three years ago my girlfriend and I were walking down the deserted pier in Coney Island in the fall. We walked by one of those pop-a-balloon-and-win-a-teddy kind of stands. Two fairly large Italian guys were encouraging us to try a few shots. The left guy hooked into my left arm and whispered, so my girlfriend would not hear him: "Don't worry I will let you win anyway." At the same time the right guy handed me the first dart. I aimed, threw and popped the first balloon. "Great!" The right guy encouraged me. Well he kept handing me the darts, all five of them and I felt if that's how I'll get out of this so be it. I threw five darts and I popped five balloons. We did start to feel uncomfortable however, the guys looked more and more sombre. Their encouragements clearly decreased. "You owe us 50 Dollars," the right guy said. - "What?" They charged me 10 Dollars per dart and if I didn't pay them they'd break every finger of my right hand. Man was I scared. I think this was the first moment of my life where I felt fear of pain. I opened my wallet and I found exactly one fifty Dollar bill. I handed it to the right guy. The left guy handed me a big teddy bear and off we ran. I felt the blood rushing through my head. I was furious and afraid at the same time.

On our way back home in the subway I gave the teddybear to a little girl sitting next to me. She hugged it and smiled at us.

TWO

2006-05-06T03:28:00.000-07:00

I expected Nausea and I got constipation. The doctors gave me so much anti-nausea drugs that it created another sideffect. Never in my life have I been so full of shit. Sitting was the most painful position, lying was bareable, but most of the time I was standing up. It was impossible to forget those few massive sausages waiting to see the light of the day, or the bathroom rather.

Before my diagnosis I was working in a grey office in Downtown New York. It was my first real 9 to 5 day job that allowed myself to barely scrape by. The projects I was involved in were challenging to a certain degree, yes somewhat interesting but what bothered me until the last day I worked there was that I had to work my balls off five to seven days a week for something I felt semi passionate about and for average monetary compensation. I think the keyword is average. The contrast was missing. The spice was missing. Contrast and spice were what I initially was looking for when moving to New York. A job sitting ten to twelve hours a day in an office chair I could probably also have found in my hometown. It has decreased my mental and physical fitness. I felt stuck. I felt like those massive sausages in my intestines. I knew i had to get out but I did not know how.

I am convinced that this unhappiness and conflict has stimulated my cancer. They say there is no known medical reason for Testicular Cancer, well I say this: If you're feeling like things are getting rougher and tighter do add some chili to those sausages cause it will make you shit and moving on will be easier. ...well imagine some sort of similar very profound statement instead of that last one. A statement in the same vulgar spirit but with much more depth.

I ended up sticking somme laxative up my ass and drank some liquid version of the same medicine. Eight hours later the entire intestine emptied itself and out came one long, unhappy piece of crap. What a sensational relief!

ONE

2006-05-04T16:47:00.000-07:00

THE RULES: One entry per day until the second round of chemotherapy is over. The entries should contain elements of the present as well the past, ideally the two elements should be tied together. The stronger the tie the better, but if they're not tied together it's fine too, at least I'm trying to use my brain for something else than worrying. This brings me to THE REASONS: distraction of the side effects of the chemo, bringing structure into my empty days, having a record of this very interruptive time in my life.

I'm 30 years old and I have been diagnosed with testicular cancer 12 weeks ago.