More questions, fewer answers

So today has been a long day. I woke up around 7:00 AM and got ready to go to work. I told myself I could do it and I would give it a 100% effort. After showering and getting ready, I was already sore. I didn't take any pain med because I cant drive while taking it and didn't figure I would be able to do any work either. So, on no pain meds, I made my way to work. The whole time I was thinking about my appointment with my urologist Dr. Winkle to go over the surgery results. So I was able to work from 9 until around noon. The pain from sitting down was hurting my incision and staples were not feeling well. My employer was very understanding and let me go home. That was probably the best thing for me. I ate a small lunch and hung out alone for the afternoon. I went to my appointment and met with Dr. Winkle. He looked at my incision and staples and decided it would be ok to remove them. Got to say..... not a pleasant experience. I think I made it worse from being so tense. I think I left a permanent hand mark on that table. After removing my staples, the doctor came back in and talked about my surgery. He said that the tumor was completely isolated to the testicle and had not spread to any other part that he could see. That was a bit of good news. He did say that the type of tumor that it is, a nonseminomatous germ cell tumor, was not the one he was hoping for. Apparently this type of tumor, is more common and requires a little more treatment to ensure that the cancer is not laying dormant in another part of my body. Not the news I was hoping for. The recommendation is to have a chest, pelvis and abdomen CT and an array of blood work. Once those tests are complete, then the oncologist will make a recommendation. That could be anywhere from just an observation period to a round of chemo/radiation to knock out whatever may be in there. The doctor did say that it looked like my tumor markers were slightly elevated but could be due to the surgery just happening. The oncologist said that testicular cancer was a curable illness and that my prognosis was good.  It appears that everything was caught early enough that hopefully this will not be a drawn out fight. There are questions of future fertility due to treatments that can render a man sterile. So now the discussion of family planning will begin shortly. So as you can see, a lot of unanswered questions and fewer answers than I was hoping for. I am trying to remain strong and going to use my new-found disease as an outlet to help other men in my same situation. The urologist recommended checking out the LiveStrong Foundation. He said there is a lot of good information on there. I will check it out and let you all know what I think. So, it looks like I am now officially a cancer patient. I was hoping that it would have worked out differently but I feel confident based on what I have read and been told that I will come out of this just fine. I will continue to workout and eat more sensibly. I will also start incorporating more "cancer-friendly" foods into my diet to help fight this disease on a natural level as well. My intention with this blog is to continue providing medical updates as to my condition and use this as a therapeutic outlet for my thoughts/feelings so that others with these same thoughts or issues confronting them can find some comfort in what I am writing and they can know that it is coming from real life experience. Please pass along this blog and encourage others to follow so they can benefit from the information that is provided. Thanks and much love to everyone.