The Cancer (Part 2)

Firstly, I have only had cancer once. I only intend to have it once too (touch wood). However, I think there is more to say on the subject than I have already posted, so here goes...

There are many reasons why people write blogs. I know I have many reasons for doing so (too much time on my hands?). One of the reasons for me writing GT Winner was partly to provide a degree of self-help type stuff, on those topics us men are so crap at talking about and so happy to ignore. I know it has been at least a partial success on this front as recently one of my female friends remarked to me

"...great blog Col. If I had any testicles, I would have had them out for a feel straight away..."

Such is the theme of today's post.

It turns out (I didn't know this until much later) that one of the main reasons for me developing testicular cancer when I was 25 years old, was something that happened much earlier in my life. When I was born I suffered from a very common birth defect known as cryptorchidism, or undescended testicle. This affects 3% of full-term or 30% of premature infant boys. It can affect one or both testes (for me it was just the one) and is one of the most common birth defects (and the most common of involving the male genitalia).

In my case, it was discovered that I had cryptorchidism when I was about three years old. I vaguely remember it, so I cannot have been that young. I underwent surgery and the testicle was re-positioned in the scrotum. The mis-placed testicle can lie in various places depending on how far it got on the journey of descent. In my case, it was in the abdominal region, below my belly button. I remember relatively little about the hospital stay, although I remember vividly returning to hospital to have my stitches removed and crying bitterly because I didn't want the nurse to see my willy! (again another sign that I can't have been that young!)

I know for a fact that both my parents and I thought that once the surgery was completed, that was the end of the saga. My mother swears that at no point was the possibility of cancer mentioned or discussed in any way. This is more than a little odd as it seems well documented in the literature that undescended testicle does significantly increase the chances of a patient developing testicular cancer at a later stage. With a history of one undescended testicle, your risk is about four times higher than that of a man with both testicles descended normally (about 1:120 compared to the norm at 1:480 for both testes affected it is 1:44). More information can be seen here

So all in all, I was lucky that I found the problem when I did. It would have been nice to have the "heads up" that I might develop a problem as I got older. I certainly think this knowledge would make affected individuals a bit more scrupulous about checking themselves regularly. I would hope that in the modern age, counselling post-cryptorchidism is better than it seems to have been when I was a boy.

Take care and happy self-examination boys and girls...

Col.