04: Chiodo

Chiodo, testicular cancer, treated as stage 3

Pre-Diagnosis

Everything was awesome. I was working, I was playing soccer, I had no physical ailments, I felt fine. Literally, the day before I got diagnosed, I was in Atlantic City. I was with my friends, getting really drunk and having a good time.

A month before my diagnosis, I was having abnormal pain but didn’t think anything of it. 

My father had testicular Cancer. I mentioned the pain to him, and he asked,

“What kind of pain?”

I never knew what to describe. You don’t want to sound like you’re complaining. My brother had a malignant tumor removed from his kidney three months prior to my diagnosis.

My father made an appointment with a general physician and forced me to go.

I was examined, and didn't think anything of it. The doctor thought maybe there was a trauma to the area. I went to another doctor the same day.

I could see in the doctor’s face that something was wrong.

You never think someone is actually going to say it, it never crossed my mind. One minute goes by and then he goes,

“You have testicular cancer”.

I’ve never felt so strong. I didn’t know to cry, to freak out, I kept it together. I was so beyond stunned.

You didn’t know the extent of how far it’s traveled and what not, you’re still in that phase where you have no idea. Is this gonna be a bad ordeal, am I going to be through treatment for years to come, did I catch it early? Obviously, a lot of crazy things were going through my head.

Describe the day you got your surgery.

My dad drove me to the hospital – my mom was with us. When I got there, I was fine.

Oh, I took a photo of my junk for the last time, just as a memory and sent it to all my friends. Right before I went into surgery, I was asked, 

“Oh, are you of any denomination?”

“Yeah, I’m Catholic”

A nice woman asked to say a prayer for me. “Absolutely, that’s nice of you”.

I was put into a dilemma, a nurse came in and said,

“Do you want a prosthesis or do you wanna go just one?”

I started asking friends what to do via text - life changing decisions and all. 

SO, I WENT WITH THREE. (Joking).

I went with the prosthesis, looks kind of more symmetrical. Best decision of my life, it’s the centerpiece – I’ve pulled it out at parties.

What was it like having cancer at 23?

I think it gave me more of a drive, which is interesting, considering I couldn’t do shit.

I didn’t want it to consume me, I didn’t want people to know that I was sick. Basically, I tried to go to work every single day. But there were probably 4 or 5 days where there was no chance in hell that I was going to work. If I took some time off, it would be terrible, I would freak out.

I lived at home and had a great relationship with my parents, there was never a time when I felt alone – they got what was going on, they were there the entire time.

What was the hardest part?

A bunch of things.

Obviously, you don’t want anyone to recognize that you’re sick and you don’t want it to be that you’re the centerpiece. At the same time, you are sick, you feel like shit, and sometimes you’re with people, and even though you want them to not think that, they won’t recognize that there were some things you physically could not do.

“Saying no” was very frustrating. I never did it before. I’m a crazy person – very outgoing. Couldn’t even pretend to be like that.

I had no stamina, at all, in the slightest.

What is your relationship to Cancer now?

Well, I guess, having seen how my dad dealt with it after - he was very, very, very, very, like it was the worst thing ever - it was just an awful thing - he never wanted to be around it.

I think I would want to get involved a lot more than he had. It’s very difficult to actually do that.

If there is somehow, I can help somebody out somehow, I would love to. I couldn’t ask for anything I’d want more, to be honest, than in someway, how I can help.

What would you say to someone who was just diagnosed? 

You want to be as positive as possible, and it’s like, you can’t. There's nothing that anybody could say that could make me feel any better.

(Pauses, takes about 3 minutes of silence before anything else is said.)

Jeez.

I want to answer that so bad, it’s one of those things where like, you’re not in that person's head and you don’t know what they’re truly experiencing at that time. The only thing that comes across is that you’re a survivor as well, and they’ll see that. 

It’s not the content of the conversation, it’s your presence that’s powerful.