Ben R

I was 32 and living in London with my girlfriend when I was first diagnosed with testicular cancer. I was fit, healthy and an active person when I noticed that my right testicle was a little larger than “leftie”. As I didn’t feel any pain or have any lumps, I didn’t think much of it and hadn’t planned to get it checked out. Thankfully, my employer at the time had a doctor on-site, so I thought I’d just pop in and mention it. The doctor didn’t seem too alarmed but told me to get an ultrasound just in case. The thought of cancer hadn’t even crossed my mind.

A few days later, I underwent an ultrasound. Even when the radiologist stepped outside to talk to the urologist, I didn’t think the worst. When the urologist sat me down and told me I had a 2cm tumor in my testicle and needed urgent surgery, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought “how can I have cancer, I’m a young, healthy male”. I didn’t know testicular cancer is the most common cancer in young men aged 20-34. A few days later, I had surgery to remove my right testicle and replace it with a prosthetic.

A few weeks after the surgery, I was able to start exercising, have sex and go back to work. Life returned to normal faster than I would have thought possible after receiving such devastating news.

Post-surgery treatment for me was periodic rounds of blood tests, CT scans and X-rays to monitor for any reoccurrence of the cancer. And after five years, I’m happy to say that the cancer never returned and I am in full remission.

Since my diagnosis, I have been actively involved with the Movember family raising awareness for this illness, chatting to blokes across the world about their own testicular cancer journeys, and I even ran in the New York marathon for Movember.