Just the Facts Ma'am

Just sat through my first black out in Tucson tonight. The monsoon season has arrived. Anyway, a bit of information about my cancer. Two days after my surgery, on May 17, I got a call from my surgeon, Dr. Jennifer Peters. I'm told she takes great humor in the fact that she's a urologist with the last name peters. Anyway, she called to confirm the tumor in my right testicle was in fact cancerous. We caught it early though. It was about two centimeters -- the size of a thumbnail -- and was in what they called stage T1. That means early, I'm told. The tumor was comprised of two cancers: 80 percent Embryonal and 20 percent teratoma. the only sense that made to me was the tumor was in fact cancer. Since then I've learned from two surgeons and two oncologists that i have very aggressive and "stealthy" types of cancer. I've also since been told that my options are three: a) observation: regular blood tests and CT scans to monitor whether or not the cancer spreads b) preventative surgery: requires the removal of about 80 lymph nodes from my lower abdomen. Heavy duty surgery -- "invasive" as the docs like to call it. c) chemo: controlled poisoning of my body. From what I can tell, I prefer chemo to the surgery, given all the unintended side effects, like damage to my ejaculatory muscle.
Right now my oncologist and I are observing and trying to get enough information to plot a data line. Which means every Monday since surgery I've had my blood drawn to monitor tumor markers (Alpha Fetaprotein and HCG).