StevePake.com: Surviving Testicular Cancer

It’s been ages since I’ve done much in the way of writing about my cancer journey here, but it’s time to start writing again.

I was raised in the Catholic church, but quickly fell away from the church after leaving home for college in 1996, and have never attended church as an adult. Despite having been baptized and confirmed and doing all of the things a good young Catholic boy ought to have done (except becoming an altar boy, which I refused), I never established a firm connection with either God or the church during my childhood, but have still largely lived a very moral and Christian life. This is the story of my return to Faith, the Church, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Based on an estimate out of the UK that cancer diagnosis are down by 75% due to coronavirus lockdowns, the U.S. could easily be missing 25,000 cancer diagnosis per week. At the same time, evidence from antibody testing has emerged showing that the coronavirus is at least an order of magnitude more prevalent than believed, which also brings the estimated fatality rates down as well. Are lockdown policies really correct? How many otherwise healthy people are being saved from COVID19 lockdowns, only to lose other lives elsewhere from cancers that aren’t detected or are detected too late, along with other health screenings that are being missed. Robust public policy debate is needed, but isn’t happening.

Community guidance and thoughts about SAR-CoV-2 / COVID19 from a number of testicular cancer experts and health care professionals, and how it could impact testicular cancer fighters and survivors, and a little advice for everybody else as well from someone that’s been there before. In many ways, so much of what I experienced as a cancer fighter and survivor has been coming back in the face of this global pandemic.

I can still have nightmares about cancer now and again even nearly a decade after my diagnosis, but I don’t let them bother me.

I was diagnosed with testicular cancer at the age of 33 and thought my life was over, but today I’m an 8 year survivor of the disease, and at the age of 41 I’m not even a young adult anymore. Times change, perspectives change, we all grow and evolve not just as cancer survivors but in life itself. At this point I just don’t give a (bleep) about cancer anymore. Here’s why.

My youngest turning 10 has been an unexpectedly big deal for me in my cancer survivor life, and it’s as though some massive box that I never knew about has suddenly been checked. My biggest fears about cancer were never dying or a life not lived, but rather not being around for my family and my children. They still have a lot of growing up to do, but with both now 10 or over, they’ll never be able to say that they never knew their father, and that’s a great moment for me.

It’s sobering to look back through my long list of cancer blogs and all the hell that young adult cancer put me through, but it’s an honor to still be here, an honor to have a voice, and to serve as one of many beacons of light to help guide and inspire others to find their way after cancer.

At 7 years out, I'm very lucky and blessed that I don't really have to think about cancer too much anymore. There's no reason that I have to, and I don't. Testicular Cancer is a cancer that you fight like hell and either beat completely within a few months or a year, or it very quickly takes you with it, and I’m still here. My cancer fight seems like ancient history at this point - a tiny spec in the rear view mirror, and life has moved on.

As a newly minted 40 year old young adult cancer survivor, I've spent much of my 30's heavily engaged with testicular cancer advocacy, but there's other things I've aspired to do in my arc through life. If my life before cancer was my first act, and my life after cancer from the ages of 33 to 39 has been a second, then let this new decade of my 40's become my third. A new era in my life begins today.

I have 4 draft Facebook page posts, and a half dozen draft blogs on my website just trying to capture all of the thoughts running through my head, and I've finally gotten a handle on what's been going on with this crazy Scorpio mind of mine, as I approach 40 as a young adult cancer survivor. As I approach this huge milestone, I'm remembering all of those times that I was so spooked and convinced that this day would never come and missing out on so many life experiences, but at the same time I'm also remembering how I made it through those times, how I overcame it all, and all of the amazing people that I found or who found me along the way that were able to help me in this journey, and such deep love and gratitude that I feel for so many. 

Six years after my cancer fight, I still GRIEVE the loss of my life as I once knew it sometimes, thinking that everything would always be okay, that my family would always be healthy, and friends that I truly love and care about will always be around. I want to believe that, but know it's just now how things work. Why do I get so sappy and emotional? Because I love you, and I want you to know that now, today, because I know that you might not be around tomorrow, or maybe I'm the one that might not be around.

Today marks my last two days of chemotherapy for testicular cancer, six years ago. Why do I mark the last two days, and not the last day? Because I distinctly remember just how scared out of my mind I was, worrying that the chemotherapy hadn't done its job, and that I'd have to go through these months of misery all over again, possibly without a healthy exit.

As an American, I tend to not pay too much attention to what members of the British Royal family are up to, but I just became a huge fan of Prince Harry. It turns out that he and I both have something in common, and that is two years of total chaos after traumatic events in our lives. For Prince Harry, it was the tragic loss of his mother, Princess Diana, 20 years ago when he was just 12 years old, and for myself, my cancer diagnosis six years ago at the age of 33.

The mental challenges that we can still face in our minds, even many years after cancer. "I've been feeling extremely restless lately, and I haven't known why. I realized I've been longing for that security that we all felt about our lives before cancer, and the restlessness is because I know I'll never feel that again. At the conscious level, I've understood and accepted this for a long time, but it doesn't mean that we don't subconsciously still long to feel that again, and that it can't affect us. A bit of depression perhaps, finding myself once again longing for something that I know I'll never feel again?

There were some fascinating inter-related but completely independent conversations amongst cancer survivor friends of mine this week that triggered an interesting cross-section of thoughts.