I Had Testicular Cancer: 4 Awkward Realities

It was a real fear. The examination would involve the ultrasound technician rubbing a gel over my genitals and then stroking the balls with a humming ultrasound transducer -- a vibrator, basically. This would go on for 20 minutes. Surely, it would feel sexual, and my body would respond. What if the technician was a woman? What if it was a man? But of course, there was another, far more serious fear as well: What if they laughed at my pubic hair? Should I shave before the appointment? Or, gosh, maybe they'd then notice I'd gone out of my way to make myself pretty, and that would make things even more awkward!

In the end, however, there was nothing to worry about. I mean, yeah, they found cancer, but no surprise boners!

So I went to a urologist, who said, "We're going to schedule a surgery to remove your testicle." Normally, when you have some kind of disease, I guess a doctor sits you down and then talks about "options." Here, my options were "remove testicle on Wednesday" or "remove testicle on Thursday."

You hopefully haven't spent much time thinking about how to remove a testicle, but if you did, you'd suppose they cut the scrotum open, yank it out with an ice cream scoop, and then sew the sack back up. But that's not how it's done. I had an inguinal orchiectomy. They made the incision in my abdomen, not the scrotum. They then pulled the ball up through my body and out the new hole (the surgeon was probably awesome at those claw arcade games when he was a kid). They have good reasons for this -- cutting the scrotum messes with the lymph nodes there, which increases the chance of the cancer spreading -- but it's also probably because no man wants to cut into a nut sack. Even doctors have to sleep at night.

When I awoke, the ball was gone, but it felt as though it were still there -- and was being chewed on by an ogre. For the next few days, my best friend was a frozen bag of corn. I spent the majority of my recovery on my couch, Jolly Green Giant bag strategically placed, taking my prescribed painkillers like clockwork.

But I'm relieved to say that I don't experience any phantom ball pain there today. Or any other phantom sensations, if that's where your mind goes.

They say it interferes with sex as well as exercise, because it feels too firm. I guess it's down to societal pressure. "That takes a lot of balls." "That's ballsy." "Balls to the wall." "Go balls deep." "Balls out." "He's got balls of steel." "Grab life by the balls." "You don't have the balls!" It even crosses languages -- if someone says, "He has a lot of cojones," I'll know what that means, and that's the only word of Spanish I know.

The chemotherapy worked, and I'm cancer-free now. I'm actually thinking of getting a sperm teardrop tattoo on my cheek to commemorate beating cancer. I wasn't lucky to get cancer, but I was to catch it relatively early. So I recommend all you males in the audience, reach down and examine your balls today. If possible, get an attractive friend to lend a hand. If you don't have a friend, ask help from passing strangers in a well-lit location, such as an airport or public library.

Ryan Menezes is an editor and interviewer here at Cracked. Follow him on Twitter for stuff cut from this article and other things no one should see.

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