Raya’s First Pregnancy. She’s due June 19th, 2024, and was confirmed pregnant with more than one.
Our baby princess Raya is all grown, and currently expecting her first litter of puppies due June 19th. We’re so excited for her, and for the families who will take her puppies home!
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.
A snapshot of my cancer and faith journeys, and the bridging of two worlds into one centered around God.
This morning, my wife asked me if during my darkest days of PTSD, I ever had thoughts of killing my entire family. No. Never. There's a terrible story in the news, one of those murder/suicide "family delete" type tragedies, where a woman had been suffering from PTSD and possibly other things, stemming from a health crisis in one of her young children.
I was never going to get cancer. It just wasn't in my life plan. Young adults don't get cancer, only older people. Even when young adults do get cancer, it was only something that happened to other people, not me. A medical school friend of my wife's died of a young adult cancer while only in her early-20's, and just a year shy of graduating from medical school and becoming a doctor. It was so sad and tragic, especially after so much hard work, but it still never registered in my mind that this could happen to me, until I was diagnosed with testicular cancer at the age of 33. Cancer wasn't ever in my life plan, until suddenly, it was.
We're all beautiful beings inside that have something unique to offer the world. Evolve yourself beyond the stereotypes and societal expectations, and have the courage to express your individuality into the world and make a difference, because the world needs it. Jordan's nickname wasn't "Sunshine" for no reason. Despite what he had been through, even while fighting through his late recurrence, he always found a way to shine. We all need to follow Jordan's example, and do the same.
Every single testicular cancer survivor and their caregivers should be aware of the possibility of low or irregular testosterone levels after cancer, and that no, the other testicle might not necessarily ‘pick up the slack,’ as is commonly believed. It isn’t that simple. Every medical professional should also be aware of this possibility with testicular cancer survivors, especially if they’re symptomatic of hypogonadism.
When I started volunteering as a blogger for Kim Jone and the Testicular Cancer Awareness Foundatio back in 2014, I did so because I was inspired by the story of Jordan Jone, loved the energy of the Jones family, and their dedication to their mission of spreading awareness about testicular cancer. It just felt like the right place for me to be, and putting my energy into. Never in a million years did I dream or imagine that just a few short years later, we'd all be saying goodbye to Jordan like this.
As I look back on 5 years of cancer survivorship, I've started to see from a higher level just how much I've evolved every year since cancer. We evolve constantly throughout our lives, perhaps too slowly to notice on a year-to-year basis, but we're always evolving. Having cancer as a young adult is a massive accelerator for that evolution.
By far, the biggest physical challenge I've faced after cancer, is that of chronic fatigue. After months of being poisoned almost to death by harsh chemotherapy drugs, irradiated trying to nuke cancer cells out of existence, or having our bodies ripped apart and then sewn back together, our bodies are just plain tired.
In Part 1 of these essays, I described what posttraumatic stress felt like to experience, and in Part II, I described the various things that I did to cope with and recover from it. In this final essay, I'm sharing the things that I've done to manage my life after suffering from posttrauamtic stress after cancer.
The passage of time without any new evidence of disease is the only way that we ever get to "cured", and that makes for a very challenging waiting game in our years after cancer. Nothing has been more terrifying to me during these years than the fears of recurrence, and every strange pain or irregularity in our bodies brings these fears to life.
I wrote my reflections on reaching 5 years since my cancer diagnosis in advance on my personal blog, "Five Years Ago Today...", so that I'd have something to share on that day, but until that day came, there was no way to know exactly how I'd feel about it. I was shocked at how I felt when I woke up that morning as a newly minted 5 year survivor of cancer, because honestly, it felt like I had just woken up from a terrible dream, and it was wonderful.
#WorldCancerDay 2016. I found my post from last year where I was finally ready to start opening up about my challenges with post-traumatic stress after cancer. I thought it would take a few months to write up, but it ended up taking all year, and I'm still not done.
Cold weather never bothered me before cancer. My body would just naturally adjust on its own, and all was well. After cancer has been an entirely different story, and as the temperatures drop below 40F, my body just wants to grind to a halt on me. My quality of life was miserable, and I just couldn't bear it anymore. I started to make some changes, and have the following cold weather survival tips.
In November of 2015, I was invited by the Cancer Knowledge Network to write a guest post. CKN is part of Current Oncology, Canada's leading oncology journal, which is read by thousands of oncology professionals and patients.
This is Part II of my three part series of essays on my struggles with post-traumatic stress after cancer. In Part I described what the whole experience felt like, and in this part I'm sharing the story of all that I did to cope with and overcome it, and all of the wonderful people that helped me get there. Fighting cancer was the easy part. Recovering from PTS after cancer is so much harder, because at first you have no idea who or what you're fighting against, only to realize it's you.
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