Testicular Cancer Long.....

[95 LT5]

Hi,

Cliff's......
Had surgury, and complications from it, more medical bills, not sure if its healing right, still not back to work, thinking of getting a lawyer
Radiation or not to radiate?

Here goes, Worst experience of my life.......
I'm 35 and have testicular cancer, had surgury to remove the bad nut on Jan 7th. Everything was ok till about 1 hr after surgury when I had a internal bleed from somewhere they went in (It is removed through the lower abdomen)
I discovered it in the hospital bed when the sac filled up with blood, about 10oz worth ( not fun btw) with more internally in that area and into upper thigh....

The doctor had never had this happen in 20yrs of doing this operation.
They had to knock me out again$$$$, and fix the leak.

Had to stay overnight at a different hospital$$$, and was brought there by ambulance$$$$.
Should have been just about 5 hr deal in and out.

Was in a ton of pain and was draining for 5 days after. Everything turned black/blue or yellow where the blood ended up

Most of that is gone now and in less pain then before, but still having difficulty with getting around easily without pain. Very tight in that area. There is a few more problems but i'll keep this brief at the moment.

The CT scan did not show any spread so it should have been contained to the testicle.
My oncologist thinks there is about a 85% that i'm free of cancer,
He is giving me the option to do radiation if I want to. I'm going for a second opinion about it Friday. Not sure if it's worth it, I like my 85%

Now, I'm not sure if I will have any permanent damage from the complication, but very aggrivated about the additional pain, lost work, and hospital bills that i'm left with. Not to mention that the doctor who did the surgury almost walked out of the room without even saying the results of the biopsy (which was cancerous) untill my wife spoke up. He then said he was going to track the results down, but didnt even know the results were in the file he was holding all the time.

I'd rather not do the lawyer bit, because of the additional cost and time involved but not very happy with what has happened.

Have the same post on the other fourm,
Thanks
:cheers:

[todesengel]

Sorry to hear that, and I feel your pain.

Having twice been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and going through treatments it stinks. I have been "cancer-free" for 21 years :).

Once while alternating treatments they accidently gave me back to back mustard gas treatments. It was one of the worst experiences of my life, and almost took it. I was of course angry, like you, and was contemplating suing. Being "cured" put things in a little different perspective for me, and I never pursued it.

I am in no means trying to steer you away from what you deem necessary, everyone believes differently. We all make mistakes, some just have more serious consequences than others.

It is great that you seem to be recovering though, enjoy your new lease on life. Please do not skip out on your return checkups, they can make all the difference. I am still going 4 times a year for mine, even though my doc says I can get away with once a year. :handshak:

[FU]

Think positive.Hope everything turn's out well for you.

[LGAFF]

I normally would not advise this, but you need to capture the info ASAP.....I would consider an attorney. Problem is you need to capture the info from the people in the room......since you were out, no way for you to testify what was said or done and what mistake might have been made.

Need discovery to start ASAP, good attorney will let you know if you have a case.

Most important is that you are getting better.

[FU]

Been a few day's , Feeling better we hope. Swelling must be going down by now.

[Hog]

I hope you are feeling better. 85% is a good number, usually if caught early most of the cells will be contained within the testicle.

In the future, keep track of your testosterone levels. Sometimes the Dr. will not recommend HRT(Hormone Replacement Therapy) and you can become symtomatic of hypogonadism(low hormone levels-testosterone). Tiredness after meals, weight gain, lowered libido, impotence0 or difficulties sustaining erections are all hallmark low T level signs/symtoms.
Te replacement is a 1 or 2 intramuscular injections a month, or daily creams rubbed onto skin, or pills. I suggest pills the least, but thats just my personal opinion.

This talk of sueing and paying money is unfortunate, these are the types of stressors that shouldnt even be thought about during times of recovery. Recovering from surgury is stress enough, let alone this type of surgury and it's complications.

So far as evidence, there is a written record of everyone who was involved in the surgury(MD's, Nurses, Technicians, Students) who were in the room, and details and times of the surgury are kept.

Every persons anatomy IS slightly different, as is their physiology so things can happen, one of them is bleeding.
Hearing this story just made me happy to live where I live, may not be the fastest, but it works.

So far as radiation, I may opt for a few rounds personally, it is a crappy experience, but does improve the long term numbers. But 85% is a good number, a really good number, but it is just a number.

It sucks that people have to sue to get money to cover extra lost income, people trying to help others and they get sued, but if they are incompetent, then they deserve it.

getting the 2nd opinion is your best move IMO.

Good luck.

peace
Hog

[LGAFF]

You would be surprised what is not documented...my daughter was a preemie, went in to put a clip on her heart. When she came out, of recovery, she started to crash....they went to bring her back into the operating room, and could not get back in as they were trying to get a dead body through a door(the normal elevator was broken so they were bringing it through the surgery area in a bodybag).

None of this was in the record...neither was the the type of clip or material they used. So later when she was 2 and we discovered she had brain damage, she could not get an MRI.

They also did not document when the did not check her feeding tube and they flushed forumula into her lungs causing an infection.

We had my daughters records reviewed as there was no documented rationale for her brain damage, no brain bleeds, etc. There was nothing abnormal documented, and I am confident that there was everything done to help her, but with the uncertainy of her future, we thought it was best to have her documents reviewed.

A good malpractice attorney will tell you if you have a case or not, and a good one will not charge to evaluate your case. They then should take the case on contingency.....most good malpratice lawyers do not mess with bogus cases as the cost of discovery is high.

[Hog]

You would be surprised what is not documented...my daughter was a preemie, went in to put a clip on her heart. When she came out, of recovery, she started to crash....they went to bring her back into the operating room, and could not get back in as they were trying to get a dead body through a door(the normal elevator was broken so they were bringing it through the surgery area in a bodybag).

None of this was in the record...neither was the the type of clip or material they used. So later when she was 2 and we discovered she had brain damage, she could not get an MRI.

They also did not document when the did not check her feeding tube and they flushed forumula into her lungs causing an infection.

We had my daughters records reviewed as there was no documented rationale for her brain damage, no brain bleeds, etc. There was nothing abnormal documented, and I am confident that there was everything done to help her, but with the uncertainy of her future, we thought it was best to have her documents reviewed.

A good malpractice attorney will tell you if you have a case or not, and a good one will not charge to evaluate your case. They then should take the case on contingency.....most good malpratice lawyers do not mess with bogus cases as the cost of discovery is high.
Stories like your's, really drive home the importance of documentation, and being a fully competently skilled nurse. I am in my last semester of nursing, finishing my last clinical consolidation component in the hospital in a busy medical/surgical unit.
Inschool they really drive home the point of documentation, even documenting mistakes. If I was the person who should have checked you daughters feeding tube before feeding, and I pushed the feed causing the aspiration, I should/will document my error/incompetence fully. This will serve several ends:1) Gives you something/one to blame. 2)Helps me to get proper retraining 3)Can help develop new protocols to prevent this from happening in the future. 4)Protects me in case I'm not at fault 5)Protects the patient

Med errors suck, but they do happen. I am going to make mistakes, i will learn from them.

peace
Hog

[LGAFF]

All of this happened at Evanston Hospital.....they are tied into Northwestern Univ School of med. Make no mistake, this is a great hospital, but I was surprised to hear none of it was documented.

Good luck with your schooling.

[WB9MCW]

95LT5 so sorry to hear about your problem.

Glad to hear about the 85% answer not a bad # indeed.

My advice is you should consult with several oncologists and get their opinions on treatment or not.

If I had to make the decision I would get the rad treatments -- not as bad as chemo for sure and no doubt will make your 15% odds less by far I would think -- see what the oncologists say about this.

Keep us posted so we know how you are doing -- support is good and you will get plenty here from us all.

Best of luck to you at this point and make sure you get plenty of multiple opinions on it all.

Don't worry about the $$ now -- plenty of time to figure it all out later -- what is important now is the best decisions about your health.

The medical bills can all be consolidated and a long term affordable payback plan can be worked out -- Usually no interest on medical debt -- worst case is "medical bankruptcy" which is far different than the regular version -- after all you did not cause the debt like charging up your credit cards on a spending frenzy.

BTW 1 in one hundred men between 16-45 get TC not many know this fact as it is not talked about like BC.

Read the book by Lance Armstrong >> "It is not about the bike" -- good inspiration for you right now. Lance had to go the Chemo route with his TC.

[Hog]

About 5 minutes after i pressed "Post Reply" on my above postlast night , the door rang. I went upstairs and answered, an old friend was there and gave me some bad news. She has an agressive form of cancer which has metastisized throughout her lymph nodes. She was bald, wearing a scarf, I was floored, chemo and radiation but prognosis is not good. I hadnt seen her in a while, last couple times were at the hospital I'm at, but she said she "was just getting bloodwork".

Anyhoo, I was doing a self exam one day in the shower and I felt something, so I went to the Urologist. I told him that I had found "something, in the North Pole region of my left teste", he giggled and said he had never heard it described that way before. He then said" Let me guess, you found this bump, and now you have been playing with it at every ocassion and now it's sore?" I replied "Yes, but it's not sore." He continued, "only 2-3 people in this county get testicular cancer each year, so stop doing you self-exams".
I always though, "What if I'm 1 of the 2-3 people?" Needless to say I still do my self-exams, I was 24 at the time, now I am 34 and all is good, turns out that I was palpating a natural part of the testicular anatomy, but couldn't feel the "bump" on the other teste. I have a good friend that had a teste removed due to cancer 8 years ago now, he WAS 1 of the 2-3 a year in the county, no radiation, no chemo-but he refuses testosterone supplementation, his waist has grown substantially, but is otherwise healthy.

LGAFF-I am also surprised that a lot of things weren't documented as well. I can't beleive they didn't record what type of metal clip was used. Thank-you very much for the kind words, I'm almost there.

peace
Hog

[WB9MCW]

The following statistics relate to the incidence of Testicular Cancer:

* 8,980 new cases for testicular cancer in the US 2004 (Cancer Facts and Figures, American Cancer Society, 2004)
* 8,890 new male cases for testicular cancer in the US 2004 (Cancer Facts and Figures, American Cancer Society, 2004)
* 1,648 new cases in England 2000 (Office For National Statistics, London, 2000)
* Testicular cancer incidence increased by 15% since 1993 in England and Wales (Office For National Statistics, London, 2002)

>> http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/t/testicular_cancer/prevalence.htm

In the United States, between 7,500 and 8,000 diagnoses of testicular cancer are made each year. Over his lifetime, a man's risk of testicular cancer is roughly 1 in 250 (0.4%). It is most common among males aged 15?40 years

>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testicular_cancer

Incidence of testicular cancer is rising. According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 7600 cases are diagnosed and about 400 men die of the disease each year in the United States. The disease is most prevalent in men between the ages of 18 and 32 and is approximately 5 times more common in Caucasians than African Americans. Germany, Scandinavia, and New Zealand have the highest incidence of testicular cancer and Asia and Africa have the lowest.

>>> http://www.oncologychannel.com/testicularcancer/index.shtml

>>> http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/150/1/45.full.pdf

PURPOSE: Testicular cancer (TC) is the most common malignancy in 20 to 34-year-old men. Numerous publications have shown an increase in the incidence of testis cancer in the last 40 years with substantial differences among countries. We evaluated worldwide variations in testicular cancer incidence and compared trends in different regions in the world.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: We reviewed 441 studies provided by a MEDLINE search using the key words testis/testicular, cancer/tumor and incidence that were published between 1980 and 2002. From these articles we selected only those devoted to testis cancer incidence and of them only the most recent studies from each country or region. Nevertheless, articles using the same data base but providing new and additional information, for example differences among ethnic groups or controversial explanations for trends, were also retained. We selected 30 articles and analyzed their methodological approach and main results.

RESULTS: Worldwide we observed a clear trend toward an increased TC incidence in the last 30 years in the majority of industrialized countries in North America, Europe and Oceania. Nevertheless, surprising differences in incidence rates were seen between neighboring countries (Finland 2.5/100,000 cases versus Denmark 9.2/100,000) as well as among regions of the same country (2.8 to 7.9/100,000 according to various regional French registers). In addition, substantial differences in the TC incidence and trends were observed among ethnic groups. The increase in the TC incidence was significantly associated with a birth cohort effect in the United States and in European countries. To date except for cryptorchidism no evident TC risk factor has been clearly demonstrated, although the environmental hypothesis with a key role of endocrine disrupters has been put forward by several groups.

CONCLUSIONS: Such a recent increase in the TC rate in most industrialized countries should lead urologists and andrologists to give more attention to testicular cancer symptoms in adolescents and young adults. In a public health perspective further research using cases collected through national and regional population based registers and case-control studies must be strongly encouraged if we wish to be able to assess future trends in TC incidence rates and also identify risk factors.

>>> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12796635

HOG -- YOU NEED TO SHOW THIS INFO TO YOUR DOC --- HE IS WAY OFF