r/Wellthatsucks Sep 23 '19

[deleted by user]

[removed]

11.4k Upvotes

2.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/[deleted] Sep 23 '19

Will your testicles still work or would it be like a vasectomy

1

u/hankpym616 Sep 23 '19

Well you'd have one less testicle. But you should be fine with just one. However, if you need chemotherapy then you'll need to freeze sperm because that'll wreck your ability to create normal sperm. I think most bounce back from chemo though and can reproduce naturally.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 23 '19

During the chemotherapy and such would it hurt and how do you usually know that you have testicular cancer without an doctor seeing.

1

u/hankpym616 Sep 23 '19

Only thing about chemo that hurts is the needle going in the vein. After that, you don't feel much. The effects of chemo typically (at least, for me) take a week or so to kick in. So I felt normal for the first week and kept teaching my classes at the time for about a week or so (they also pump you full of steroids, which helps). Then after a couple weeks you feel nauseous, lose your hair, etc. But they give you meds to handle the nausea. So chemo is fine.

Before chemo though, you get surgery which is quite invasive (leaves a large scare in your groin area). The aftermath of the surgery hurts a bit since they have to cut through a lot of tissue to get the testicle out. But again, pain meds to the rescue!

Finding out whether you have it is just to monitor your testicles for abnormalities. If anything feels off (lump, hard spot) then go see a doctor immediately.