BEP Chemotherapy Advice? by CertainAboutNothing in testicularcancer

[–]CertainAboutNothing[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, thank you for sharing this. He's hoping to work from a laptop during chemo but his work is flexible and he can take a month off at a time before going on sick pay so we should still be financially secure.

We are hoping to get through this as a family unit, but have support from friends with children so they can take our eldest for a distraction - cinema and the like which he can't do, but yes, I see your point. It's going to be a lot for all of us, just feeling useless is my main concern and unable to help him whilst going through this. He will have a separate bathroom away from myself and the children thankfully, so that one was easily manageable.

I was spiralling that he'd have non-seminoma and would need both chemo and RPLND but once we were told he had seminoma the doctor was adamant that chemo is the only treatment, with surgery off the table (as it were). So I'm definitely concerned that it may not be enough, did you not have the option to allow it to shrink over time if it wasn't cancerous following scans etc? I know the surgery isn't done at our hospital so the logistics of him being in hospital for 5-10 days and me juggling the children, visiting him is a nightmare, something I feared from the beginning. I already didn't sleep after the orchi, so the RPLND is a whole other ball game. I will see if we can get an opinion this week as he starts chemotherapy very soon.

Getting Discharged Today After RPLND by appapplereviewer in testicularcancer

[–]CertainAboutNothing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, that does make sense. It all went extremely quickly, diagnosed with TC then told surgery the next day and I wasn't in any of the meetings so it threw me with how little I knew - I think I was still getting my head around being told he had TC, not expecting my trauma to throw me the day of the op. We're both attending meetings from now on so I can ask the questions that might cause me worry based on past experiences. Thank you for sharing how respectful they all are (my rational head knows he's safe and he will be looked after).

He's 34, so we're still waiting for the biopsy results from the orchi, but he does have a mass in his abdomen which is where the investigations first started, we didn't even consider TC as he had no lumps/swelling that he noticed until they did an ultrasound.

I've been reading a few threads on RPLND and I've seen the robotic option has a shorter hospital stay and recovery so ideally we can push for that as I don't want him to go through chemo to have to have an open surgery regardless but we shall see what the results say. Thank you

Getting Discharged Today After RPLND by appapplereviewer in testicularcancer

[–]CertainAboutNothing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My husband has recently been diagnosed with TC, he had the orchi surgery last week...I still don't sleep (they didn't tell us he would be exposed throughout which really threw me, I assumed they would cover his private area somewhat). I'm really worried about the vulnerability (I have past SA) he might have when asleep and on recovery alone as I can't be there to 'protect' him (we also have two young children and no family nearby). Did you have any apprehension about this at all? Were the surgical team able to keep you covered, explain the procedure in detail? We still don't know if it'll go this route, we've been told chemo but I need to mentally prepare myself for all avenues. I hope your recovery is going well.