10 years on

This very day, March 8th 2024, marks the 10th spin around the sun since I was diagnosed with a little bout of testicular cancer. It felt almost appropriate that I write a blog post to share my views on how I’m feeling about it all now 10 years on. So this here is my half arsed attempt at that.

Initially I wasn’t going to mention it to you lot, I thought I had very little to say on the matter. Sure it creeps into my mind every so often to gently remind me of what went down, but that’s it, to me, it’s faded into the realm of just a thing that happened, another story to tell. And I guess that’s the message I wanted to convey to you, using my words and your eye balls.

Like the marks on the ends of our fingers, everyone’s cancer story, everyone’s journey, and everyone’s destination differ from one another. But to the people who perhaps find themselves with testicular cancer, or are lucky to bet few years in remission from it, I can hopefully tell you that it gets better, that with time it fades into the background, that it’s no longer time or life consuming. 

Sure I still get a nice trip down memory lane once a year when I’m invited back for my check ups, I still get the fleeting familiar fear of the results, which are always good (if you ignore my high cholesterol), and then I’m sent back into the wild world, worrying about trivial things like what I’m going to have for lunch. I consider myself very very lucky to be in position I find myself in.

90s hit sensation Gabrielle once said that time is a healer, and I guess over here time is proving her absolutely correct. Nice one Gabs. It’s now weird to look at pictures of me in hospital, I don’t quite associate with the person in the pictures, and not just because I have more hair in them. The world is a completely different place. If I was going through it in 2024 this blog wouldn’t even exist, it would probably be a series of TikTok dances followed by hundreds of conspiracy theories informing me the lizard people were responsible for my diagnosis. These days heard that my RPLND surgery is done by robots now, which is super futuristic and pretty cool for people having it done. That said I’m kind of proud of, and remarkably unfazed by, the scars that my surgery left me, it makes me look like a super tough guy when I’m building sandcastles in my local B&Q.

I’m still eternally grateful for every family member, every friend, and very nearly every NHS doctor, nurse, or porter, that got me through that time. It’s nothing short of tragic to see the NHS being dismantled by those bastard Tories, I believe that the service that saved my life and left me without any further debt, should be protected for everyone at every cost, and I fully support every NHS worker that does a strike. The fantastic work that Macmillan Cancer Support do still holds a great place in my heart and I’ll always be happy to lob donations in their direction. 

I guess that’s it now for these blogs, maybe I’ll update it in another 10 years, but maybe I’ll forget my password again.