EllingFamily:TogetherWeThrive

I was diagnosed with testicular cancer on March 9, 2004. I was working in my office as a technology coordinator late one afternoon when I felt intense pain in my left testicle. When I went to the bathroom to check out what was causing the pain, I came to find that my left testicle had swollen to twice its regular size and was sore to the touch. At this point I knew something was not right. I called my wife and she picked me up from work. We made our way to the emergency room at the Mercy Hospital in Mason City, Iowa.

It finally came..my two year anniversary! As a survivor of non-seminoma testicular cancer, the two year anniversary is really fairly significant date. According to most research I have read states that if an individual makes it to their second anniversary without re-occurance there is roughly a 96-97% chance that the person's cancer will not relapse. All my blood tests and my CT scan came back clear, so I am now on a schedule of CT scans every six months and blood work every 3 months. Today is a great day!

Now after two years, I have had a little time to reflect on my cancer experience and I have realized how important it is to communicate with others who have had the same experiences. To that extent, I am very grateful for the community at the TC-NET list serve and all the advice Doug Bank, Nick O'Hara Smith, and Mark Kantrowitz give on a daily basis along with the hundreds of other list serve members who share their thoughts and experiences. After I had gone through surgery and chemotherapy I was left with a lot of questions about by body, my emotional state, and about my life after TC.

I have the honor of being selected to be one of the LiveSTRONG advocates to go to Washington D.C. May 15-17 for National LiveSTRONG Day to discuss cancer survivor issues with my federal representatives. I look forward to discussing these issues one on one with my legislators, especially, when there is the risk that cancer research funding will be cut in the national budget this year.

In an effort to make cancer a national priority, thousands of cancer survivorship advocates across the country participated in LIVESTRONG Day on Wednesday, May 17, by sending messages to members of Congress, rallying, gathering or simply wearing yellow. I was one of more than 100 advocates that joined Lance on Capitol Hill to urge Congress to fully fund the National Cancer Institute and support the Cancer Survivorship Research and Quality of Life Act of 2006.

Partly due to my cancer experience and philosophy to "sieze the day", I have decided to start a web design company. Elling Technologies found at http://www.ellingtechnologies.com is an extension of my professional career as webmaster for the Iowa Department of Education. For now I'll doing this on a project by project basis since as we all know health insurance for cancer survivors is mighty expensive if you are not part of a group plan. Elling Technologies is geared toward nonprofit, educational and small business enterprises.

Well I made it! Three years down and and two to go until I am considered cured of my cancer. I know this is a cliche but I cannot believe how fast the time has gone over the past three years, time really does fly. All my latest blood work and CT scans have all come back clean and look good. There has been absolutely no change in any of my CT scans which is great and my tumor markers are nonexistent. Since I have been on testosterone now for over two years my mood, achiness and sweating have all stabilized and I feel like myself and not a mind in a fog, sweaty, grouch which is a great thing.

For some reason, they yet to have determined, when a man gets diagnosed with testicular cancer they also usually have a greater incidence of high cholesterol, unfortunately, I am one of those men. As I posted a few years ago I had a total cholesterol of 285 before I started using Crestor to lower my bad cholesterol. Crestor, fortunately, worked to lower my bad cholesterol (LDL) and my total cholesterol now sits around 128 but Crestor did not have any real affect on my HDL that continued to hover around 16.

On August 9 I was called by the Lance Armstrong Foundation to see if I would be willing to go to the Iowa Straw Poll in Ames and help promote the LivesStrong Presidential Cancer Forums to be held in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I enjoy cancer patient advocacy so my wife and I agreed to help get the LiveStrong bus get setup for a day of promotion at the republican event. The LiveStrong is actually an converted school bus that Lance Armstrong converted for the annual bike ride across Iowa called RAGBRAI that he uses to promote the LAF and spread the cancer advocacy mission.

Below is an excerpt of reader comments taken from the online USA Today article entitled " 'Livestrong' army enlists presidential candidates". I am the person entitle 'aelling' and felt compelled to voice my knowledge of testicular cancer once individuals started posting outright lies and untruths regarding the causes of testicular cancer. Start at the bottom of the article and read from bottom to top to get the correct chronology of the argument.