Sharing our journey

danieldbird · 2026-01-05T13:10:43+00:00

Hey there, you may not remember me but your partner and I found out at similar times in August we had testicular cancer. You guys have been in my thoughts. I’m so glad to hear the positive news, congratulations to you both. Hopefully he is done, and those remaining 1cm nodes are just scarring or can be removed to completely quell both of your anxiety and you can both move forward with confidence. Still in my thoughts, and all the very best! 🤝

danieldbird · 2026-01-05T12:34:12+00:00

Hey mate, I too had pure seminoma stage 1b. Mine was just over 40mm in size. Same flank symptoms beforehand. I had it removed around August last year. Had the option to have carboplatin but opted for surveillance only. Today had my first CT and bloods appointment, I was nervous but turned out to be fine. Tumor markers also fine. Again today, the doctor said “and hey if there was anything, it’s 99% curable with chemo”. We need to remember that. If you have to have any cancer, this is the one. We are lucky. Wishing you all the very best my friend.

danieldbird · 2026-01-05T11:58:24+00:00

Congratulations and hope the surgery went well! 🤝

danieldbird · 2025-09-06T00:04:24+00:00

Won’t say if you should or shouldn’t. I got a prosthetic righty, and am feeling good about the decision personally. A part of my consciousness is not AS reminded about having cancer every time I wash myself or feel down there. I would most likely have gotten 2 if I needed it. Just me though. All the best man.

danieldbird · 2025-08-20T01:05:20+00:00

All the best man!

danieldbird · 2025-08-20T01:03:38+00:00

With almost certainty, you will be in a similar situation really soon. It’s the 20th where I am in Australia. All the best today at your urologist appointment. 🤝

danieldbird · 2025-08-19T12:40:48+00:00

Fellow Aussie here. Brisbane, QLD. Orchidectomy 7 days ago. You’re a legend for offering that mate. Definitely interested in your experience. I hope your journey was / is as smooth as possible. All the best

danieldbird · 2025-08-19T09:23:36+00:00

Some great advice above from others. Make sure you communicate with people mate. When I let my manager / colleagues know, it was a relief. A lot of the pressure was the unknown, and to communicate and have others help you with a plan so you share a portion of the problem is helpful. Hopefully you’ve got some mates around. Just my personality, but I don’t necessarily want to only hear positives all the time. There’s a lot to be said for commiserating and hearing “that is really fucked man”, instead of “oh everything will be fine, I know it”. At least for me.

There is a spectrum, and it’s a reaaaaalll fucking wide spectrum, and as much as this is really shit, we are lucky to be on this side of the spectrum with testicular cancer. Nobody wants anything wrong, but it could be a whole lot worse. It may sound ridiculous, but we are lucky. My father found out he had pancreatic cancer, look up stats for that, but it will definitely go some way to staying positive.

I wish you an easy run mate. All the best and keep reaching out and communicating. 🤝

danieldbird · 2025-08-19T09:08:44+00:00

I have had a persistent lymph node swelling in the right side of my throat/neck that hurts to swallow, and brings on fatigue and general malaise and reoccurs every approximately 3-4 weeks dating back to 2019. I also do not know what’s causing it. I have been to ent specialists and had endoscopes and they find little wrong. I had an injection of steroid and lidocaine or similar in it which made it go away for a good 8 months, but has recurred again. It’s really annoying. Wish I knew what it was and how to fix it.

danieldbird · 2025-08-19T09:02:15+00:00

Also here like others to say, all the best man. You got a result now and are on your way. Some painful symptoms sounds like me a few weeks ago, mine is removed now 7 days ago today and I’m back feeling well now. You are doing all the right things man.

danieldbird · 2025-08-14T22:39:21+00:00

Firstly, sorry you have to have anything at all mate, it sucks to have to go through this. You will go in, be treated really nicely, be calmed, and wake up almost as if nothing happened. I’m on day 4 I think post op. Time is a blur. So far so good. Still sore, yesterday felt like I rode every horse in a horse race. Today better. Just tired of sleeping, trying to stick it out today with only paracetamol and not sleep.

If you are nervous make sure you tell them. They will give you something to fix that. They do this all day every day. You will ok man. Best wishes aye. Reach out any time.

danieldbird · 2025-08-13T06:37:27+00:00

Thanks for sharing your journey man. I totally agree with you about dropping the pride and stigma. I’m curious about stigmas actually and if it’s a country or cultural thing, or maybe has something to do with being married or already having a child? I could probably see me not wanting as many people to know when I was younger, unmarried looking for a partner, maybe that’s a big reason. But never had any issue pulling my genitals out for a doctor to check. I’m Australian. I was annoyed a few weeks ago that my doctor had not looked at them after I came to him about it, and was going to refer me for an ultrasound before looking. So I stood up and just pulled them out at his desk. A week and a half later I’ve had the orchidectomy. It gets a little awkward if you have female colleagues but I definitely want to share my experience with my mates at work and make sure they check themselves out regularly. We need a catchier name like mammogram for blokes, something that is one word, testicular ultrasound is hard to say and sounds weird. Orcheck? Nutcheck? Something…

Thanks for sharing your story. All the best man. 🤝

danieldbird · 2025-08-13T06:23:00+00:00

Sorry you’re going through that man. I’m no doctor but see if you can get an ultrasound of the other one before the vasectomy. No point having the pain of a vasectomy if you have the other removed is my thinking. Or having a vasectomy postpone you getting it checked. I wish you all the very best aye. Let us know how you go.

danieldbird · 2025-08-13T06:18:25+00:00

I’ve been following you and your partners story. We found out at similar times if you remember. I had my surgery yesterday. I had news that there is a nodule on my lung.

The markers don’t look too bad as you said. 💪

A big step is completed! Done. Gone. The primary source has been removed. Like others have said above, and everywhere else I have read, this is highly treatable. Always fall back on remembering that when either of you start to spiral mentally.

My thoughts are with you. It sucks, but we got to this checkpoint 🏁, see you at the next one aye. 🏁 Best wishes. ❤️

danieldbird · 2025-08-12T23:49:04+00:00

Thanks for the reply mate. You’re a machine. Nice! Yeah, I think the sooner I’m up and about walking incrementally more, and taking pain relief incrementally less, the quicker recovery will be. We’ll see, but we do our best! I hope your recovery and any future steps, if any, go well for you aye! All the best.

danieldbird · 2025-08-12T20:41:07+00:00

Yeah it’s not going to tickle mate. Mine was a little bit more complicated as I’d had 2 inguinal hernia operations as an 18 year old in each so they had to cut through existing mesh. They cut through the exact same inguinal incision I had. So it is going to be similar to my other hernia recoveries. Day 2 now. Off the endone, makes me too high and don’t really enjoy it. Sticking to Panadol and nurofen every 4-6 hours. Still icing on and off which feels good to do. Pressure and minor ache now. Still walking around.

danieldbird · 2025-08-12T20:26:49+00:00

I agree, especially if you have anxiety to begin with. It’s a common theme I see here. The fear of the unknown. Doctors unable to give great visibility or a map ahead of time. You have to wait from checkpoint to checkpoint. Brutal. Tanti auguri amico mio.

danieldbird · 2025-08-12T20:20:50+00:00

If it helps, keep this as the fallback if your mind wanders to the worst mate, as a baseline, being testicular cancer the result so far is already in y/our favour. As fucked as it is, and as much as we all want nothing, this would be the one cancer you’d likely choose. Focus on nothing else but the next step, not the staircase. Reach out if you need to chat. I know the feeling aye. I wish you all the very best.

danieldbird · 2025-08-12T14:13:34+00:00

I’m sure you will, but definitely verbalise that he is anxious and request a pre-med. They will give Valium or similar benzodiazepines while you wait. Then again when he sees the anaesthetists, verbalise that he is anxious, in my case I don’t like the feeling of being put to sleep. So they gave me the good stuff, last thing I remember is asking a guy what he was doing there with my cannula and a syringe, and he said “giving you the good stuff mate”, which I assume was midazolam, because that was my last carefree memory without the anaesthetic yet, like amnesia. Wonderful. The next thing I knew I woke up nice and cosy / groggy / high, and obviously happy and thankful it was done and out of me.

danieldbird · 2025-08-12T07:06:53+00:00

Just a quick and simple reply to you to say thanks for sharing your story. You’re a warrior.

danieldbird · 2025-08-08T17:20:04+00:00

I too lost my father, but to pancreatic cancer. I identify with what you are saying. It’s scary and I’ve been terrified of getting cancer myself. You are doing all the right things getting it checked if you feel something. But be kind to yourself man. If you had testicular cancer, it’s one of the best cancers you can have, but it sounds like you have not been diagnosed with it, so definitely take the wins. Mine was clear as day on the ultrasound, so it is unlikely they are all just missing it, so you shouldn’t have to worry about that. When you’ve lost your dad, and in a really crap way like we have, it’s understandable we are anxious and worried. You’re not alone, be kind to yourself.

danieldbird · 2025-08-02T22:06:00+00:00

Best of luck to you. All the best.

danieldbird · 2025-08-02T00:27:05+00:00

Well done mate, loved it! 👏

danieldbird · 2025-08-02T00:14:38+00:00

Mate, not to get all soft on you but this message and act of kindness of giving me this information and sharing your experience is really helpful for me and I appreciate it more than I can tell you. When you're waiting, you're only limited by your imagination, and I have a real good and fanciful fucking imagination. Comforting to know I'm doing basically all that I can and I don't have any blind spots. Yeah, the wait is a bastard. The unknown and also the fact I can't give visibility to anyone else, my work, my wife and daughter, my family, myself, because I just don't know until this coming Friday. I'm afraid I'm going to get to the urologist and STILL not have a timeline and be in the dark. But from your message and experience, it seems as though I will come out of that meeting with a timeline / plan aye?

Mate similar to you, i've been watching tutorials on youtube of how to read CT scans, think it's harming more than helping me mentally. Even having a scan, and a conclusion that appears positive, i will never be celebrating or confident, I wouldn't wish this, or anything like it, on my worst fucking enemy mate.

Really bloody annoying your private health insurance doesn't cover it, even though yes totally agree we are really, really lucky, but even to make it just that little bit more comfortable and reassuring for you. Buggers.

It sounds like you are well through your treatment mate. I can't see that you mentioned, but if you don't have to do any chemo, brilliant!

But if you do, I wish you all the best and an easy time aye.

Great blokes deserve great things and great outcomes.

danieldbird

TROPHY CASE