About Me and My Cancer

Good Day Everyone,

So, my name is David Hudlow, I'm 21 years old and I have testicular cancer.

Never thought I would have this happen to me, especially at 21, but I hope to make the best of it. I found out on Tuesday April 9th, 2013 that I had a tumor growing in one of my testicles. I would have never known about it if the tumor hadn't started growing into the epididymis of my testis, causing swelling, redness and pain. I went to the doctor and he refereed me to a urologist who did an ultrasound of the area and the lump was found. I had to get blood work done, have a CT scan and come back for an operation.

Two days later I had surgery to remove the tumor, by tumor I mean whole testicle. Just one though, I still have the other. So you can call me the one ball wonder now. I enjoy teasing my girlfriend (who only wants boys) that I only have my girl testicle left. I am aware that isn't how it works but her reaction is priceless.

Anyways, a week later we went back to the urologist for a follow up and found out that the lump was cancerous and that it had unfortunately spread to lymph nodes in the back of my abdomen  After another week we went to go see the oncologist who explained that because of the size of the lymph nodes (4.7cm, and 3.5 cm) that chemotherapy would be the best option. My chemotherapy will last about 9 weeks with 3 week rounds of the drugs. The first week of each round I have to go 5 days a week (which started May 6, 2013). But the second and third week of each round I only have to go in one day a week. So now I'm sitting here almost a month later in the chemo room having these toxins pumped into me and letting the fun times roll.

I'm using this blog to keep my friends and family informed. I'm usually tired after a day of chemo and just don't always feel up to making phone calls and sending text. Which makes this blog a perfect way to keep in touch and keep me entertained whilst I sit in a hospital for 5 hours. Woo hospitals. This blog will be updated by myself, and my beautiful fiance Melanie (Mel) so if you see a post written in British, then that's her.





David's Journey, from Diagnosis to Treatment (by Mel).

David briefly described the journey above, here I am going to go into more detail about the scan and the timeframe. 

We went to the family doctor on Tuesday morning, at 10:30, and he referred us to the urologist, Dr Jitesh Patel (please visit http://www.urologygeorgia.com/ for my info on the practice and http://www.healthgrades.com/physician/dr-jitesh-patel-ybbny for Dr Patel, we think he's the dogs bollocks, which is British for awesome). We saw his assistant, Anthony .... I don't remember his last name, but he did give me a fantastic hug. He suggested an ultrasound of the testicle. That is when the found the lump, a horrid grey lump. They then told us that it is a large solid mass, most likely cancer. We all thought well, that's not what we expected. 

We were then sent to get some blood taken, which took forever as they forgot to put us on the frigging list! We then went back down to meet Dr Patel, who was very nice and told us that even if it wasn't cancer, it would be best to simply remove the testicle and then we would have to wait and see if it was cancer. He booked us in to have an operation on the Thursday, two days later. He also wanted us to get a CT scan the following day to see if the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes in his stomach, etc. We would see him Thursday and then the following Wednesday for the follow up. 

Wednesday morning we went to the CT scan, it took forever to find a vein, as Davids vein's aren't very raised and then they wouldn't tell us anything about that scan. We then drove up to Marietta to get his stuff as he would be staying in Loganville whilst he healed. 

Thursday was the day of the operation, it was only a 30 min procedure but the pre-op stuff and the post-op stuff took a long time. The operation was a success, David was very sore but had pain medicine to help, they said it would take about 6 weeks for the swelling to go down.

We then waiting till the following Wednesday (17th April), and then we found out that it was indeed cancer, and that it had spread to the lymph nodes in his abdomen, and that because of the size he had stage 2B testicular cancer.

Then we waited until the following Thursday (25th April), to see the oncologist; Dr Alan Freedman (http://www.cancergwinnett.com/ we are at the Snellville location, and Dr Freedman is a great doctor, he is very to the point, quite blunt and he gets the job done, we like him a lot too http://www.healthgrades.com/physician/dr-allan-freedman-xs2mb). He explained to us that there are two courses of treatments one had four sessions and one has three. To decided which one we go with, as the 3 week treatment includes a drug called Bleomycin which can cause scar tissue in the lungs (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a682125.html), we had to do a lung function test. Both can cause hearing loss, so we had to do a hearing test, another CT scan on the upper and lower chest and more bloodwork.

The following week, on Thursday (2nd May) we found out, that it had not spread to his lungs (YAY), he had great function in his lungs and Dr Freedman suggested the three week course and David agreed. 

The three week course uses a type of treatment called BEP (the four week course was EP). It is called BEP because it is made up of three drugs named:
- Bleomycin
- Etoposide 
- Cisplatin 


David must go in 5 days a week for the first week of each cycle, each day he get Etoposide and Cisplatin, as well as a lot of saline to help flush his system and on Tuesday he also gets Bleomycin, they also give him steroids and other medication to help his body cope. For the 2nd and 3rd week of the cycle he just gets Bleomycin once a week. 

We then have to wait and have more tests done before he gets the all clear.

Once I know more, I'll update this page. 



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