[quote name='neocisco']How's the recovery? Doing well?[/quote]
Yup! Back in the office today. Tried to come in Friday, but pain was still kinda bad so I decided to give myself the benefit of the weekend to recover a little more. Mainly it's just mild pain around the incision site and a little soreness on the left side of my junk. Have mostly weened myself off the prescription painkillers at this point, sticking to ice packs and Tylenol.
We got the final pathology report last week, and everything looks good. They confirmed the 100% pure seminoma diagnosis from the time of the surgery. The small size of the tumor, lack of lymphovascular spread, and other indicators are all great signs. I have to get a follow-up CT scan sometime in the next couple weeks to confirm the cancer has not popped up elsewhere in my body and to determine "staging" (it's how they label your cancer to indicate how far it has progressed). Since they caught it early and looks like no spread, I'll probably be Stage I.
If that is the case, I only have a 5 - 10% chance of reoccurence (the chance that the testicular cancer would return down the road). Standard course of action would simply be surveillance, meaning a CT scan and blood test every few months. However, I can shave maybe 5 or 6 more percentage points off that chance of reoccurance by doing a preemptive course of radiation or modified chemo.
Radiation can be risky, because your body can only endure so much radiation over the course of your life, and this would make it harder or impossible for me to be treated with radiation down the road if I get an unrelated cancer. It would also almost surely eliminate any chance of sperm production returning to the right testicle (which may not happen anyway, but we'd like to give it a chance).
Normal chemotherapy is comprised of three components, refered to as BEP. The P stands for carboplatin, and I would just be given that once or twice. Wouldn't be nearly as physically trying as regular chemo. However, this is a fairly new course of treatment, and there have been no studies to see what long-term effects the carboplatin has on the body. Could also hamper our fertility chances.
Don't forget the "suspicious area" in the right testicle. They want me to get ultrasounds of it at 1, 3, and 6 months from now to watch it (and they want me to fly to NYC to get them each time, which may be tough).
We'll be meeting with an oncologist very soon to decide what to do. I'm leaning toward surveillance, but we'll see. I know this all sounds unpleasant, but it's not nearly as scary as it could have been. So far, I'm living the best case scenario, and I am thankful.