Hello everyone,
First of all I want to say thank you to you all for your obviously heartfelt best wishes. I also want to say thank you in particular for the stories a lot of you have shared and a lot of the advice given. I have taken it on board and yesterday put out an SOS for groceries and as I came home just now for an hour or two I found my fridge full of fruit and vegetables (we've been living in takeaways).
So, an update. This morning we went for the hurriedly-arranged surgery. The surgeon did the pre-op assessment and he said that the affected testicle was nothing but cancer any more. They moved the operating list around so he would have surgery in the morning early as he was nil by mouth since last night (while some patients had had breakfast!) and he was unlikely to need a bed overnight, thus earlier operating would keep a bed free.
I pottered around the hospital for hours and hours and hours, from about 10am. At 1pm H2B sent me a text that said "Go go go" which meant he was on his way to theatre. As you may or may not know, H2B is a doctor and so it's been a bit odd spotting friends and having to explain why we're there in a patient capacity, but today I met one of our friends and she distracted me for a whole hour between 1 and 2 (which is much longer than she ever takes for lunch!). She said she'd arranged her postponed smear test and had told all her male friends to check themselves. After she went back to work at 2pm I phoned up to the ward, but H2B was still in theatre. At 3pm I phoned the ward again and they said he was still in recovery, but was awake (that news was SUCH a relief) and I could come up and wait for him.
So at just past 3pm, he was wheeled in and was quite alert and very very very well. I stayed with him till 4pm while he had various observations and things and left him once he was given morphine and went all woozy and sleepy and happy. His scar is sore and itchy (they had to shave him!!) but he's so relieved he has had the cancer removed.
I'm at home changing the bed and making some dinner for when he returns. He has to wait to see the surgeon again for a debrief, which could be a few more hours.
We've just this second had news that the radiologist has filed his report about H2B's CT scan and it is "clean as a whistle". And while we're not breathing a big sigh of relief just yet, we're glad to not be holding our breath.
From here, we have to wait for the outcome of the biopsy and H2B has to keep going for weekly bloods to check the cancer markers. This will determine what the next step is, whether that's chemotherapy or continued observation.
What I mainly want to say now is ....
TALK TO YOUR HUSBAND, FIANCE, BROTHER, UNCLE, DAD, NEPHEW, SON (etc!) AND REMIND THEM TO CHECK THEMSELVES. It mainly happens to young men (16-40) and you just don't know that you're ill. My H2B's lump was painful which is why he noticed, but they USUALLY ARE NOT painful. Check, and make sure they check regularly so that they know what is normal and what is changing.