Why I've been away from the forum - not much related to sailing

[Eddie Offermann]

A few weeks ago, I woke up sick. I didn't know quite what was wrong - abdominal pain... maybe I ate something that disagreed with me. By the next morning, I knew I needed to get to a doctor as it had localized and was very severe.

So I went to the ER. There were some tests to determine if it was something demanding emergency surgery. A sonogram indicated one testicle was apparently enlarged and had an internal mass of some sort. So, I was referred to a urologist. I was told that I probably had testicular cancer and was scheduled for surgery a few days later.

Before surgery I was told that the primary tumor markers had come back negative on the blood test. Could mean no cancer, could mean a seminoma (a particular common type that responds well to treatment and frequently doesn't present markers). The only elevated marker was LDH - which is elevated for pretty much anything where tissue is dying/regenerating. It's elevated in cases of tumor growth, but is also elevated when you have the flu, an infection, etc. It's a generic "something is wrong" signal. My doctor shrugged and said "Sooooo... Maybe it's not cancer. Either way, it's in bad shape and has to come out."

Recovery from surgery has been about what I had guessed, but faster than many accounts I've read online. Pathology indicated that it was cancer, specifically seminoma. They feel pretty strongly that it's stage 1 and was completely removed surgically, but to be certain we're following up with a PET/CT scan later this week and most likely hitting it with radiation. That will slightly increase my chances of other types of cancer - by a couple percentage points - but would give me a better than 99% guarantee of being completely out of the woods on this.

Ongoing surveillance will happen regardless - for the first two years, it'll need to be every three months: so that gives me my date for when I want to set sail on The Big Sail. End of 2014. By then, I'll hopefully be down to two blood tests a year which would be manageable, allowing me to set distant destinations and plenty of time offshore and in remote locations... which is really the point of this dream of mine!

[paul ~ sv; pink cloud]

Hope u feeling well. Im a cancer survivor. Came back from stage 4b. That was 8 yrz ago. There is life after ..! Get well soon.

[Clyde A. Phillips]

Missed you, Eddie.  Take care of yourself.  Spend some of your down time writing for this site.  Use paper if you have to, you can post it later.  We enjoy (most of) your posts.

[bob mitchell]

welcome back, my friend. easy does it.