EllingFamily:TogetherWeThrive

Round two began and things were starting to become less and less comfortable. After the first day of my second round, I decided to go ahead and shave my head completely bald. My hair had been falling out for about a week and by the start of my second round large areas on my head were completely bare of hair. So instead of looking like a spotted leopard ,I decided to shave my head clean. My wife got out the hair clippers and went about shaving my head with a safety razor. I had shaved my head in past years and had no real problems with it, however, this was completely different. When I saw my head shaved it really hit home that I had cancer and I might die. Seeing myself this way really brought home the point. I remember taking a shower after the haircut and breaking down and crying in the shower.

My health was also slowly deteriorating as I progressed through the second round. As the first week of the second round went by, I became more and more sick and nauseous as the week progressed. Earlier in the first week of the second round I was able to sit out in the main chemotherapy room with the other patients, but by the time mid-week came I was so sick that I had to take my chemo laying down on one of the beds in a private chemo room at that cancer center. The anti-nausea medicine for the most part though was able to keep my nausea under control. During the same time I also began to bleed from my nose and from my anus. My platelet count was going down and according to my oncologist the chemotherapy tended to cause irritation and soreness around the anus and bleeding was not all that uncommon and said to keep the area clean and utilize over the counter treatments like Preparation 8 which helped. Energy levels were also starting to become a factor as I started to become winded going up stairs. I just had a general malaise to my overall energy level.

Even with the declining situation of my health, on the last day of the first week of my second round I received some of the greatest news I have ever received, my tumor markers had dropped for the first time since I was diagnosed with TC. In fact, my markers were already within the normal range. Even though my markers had never really gotten that high this was still fantastic news.

At the end of round two I was ready for chemo to be done and since my tumor markers were low my spirits were pretty high but I was not looking forward to round three. Having done all the research on the internet I knew that two rounds was customary in Europe and I began to think that maybe the oncologist would not make me go through the third round. Even though I knew logically and from all the research that was available that I would need to go through my third round, I just had to ask my oncologist. He told me that I would need to go through my third round and that was the end of the discussion. At that time I remember reading a quote from another testicular cancer survivor that said "Cancer is awful, BUT YOU WILL GET THROUGH IT!" I took solace in that quote knowing that the treatments was awful but it was working and I needed to stick it out and give myself the best chance at survival that I could. So it was on to round three.