New with lots of questions!!

[markswife]

I am so happy to have found this site! My husband was diagnosed at the end of September with TC. He had been having gallbladder issues and ended up in the hospital late one night. We discovered that his gallbladder was so bad that he had a bad case of pancreatitis as well. Then imagine our surprise when the surgeon on call discovered that his right testical looked a little larger and ordered an ultrasound. To make a long story short, when he had his gallbladder removed two days later he also had his right testicle removed as well! We have just been in shock to say the least. Pathology reports discovered pure seminoma.
A few days later he had his CT and we just found out that his lymph nodes may have been affected. Another surprise because his oncologist was expecting it to be clear. Now we are on to a Petscan next week to see if that is indeed the issue. Then if so, they will biopsy those.
Now to get to my questions! (:p:pI bet ya'll are thinking that I said I would make this short!) We are still hoping that the lymph nodes aren't going to be an issue and we will follow up with 2 rounds of carboplatin as we had figured on earlier. We were told that his side effects wouldn't be quite as bad with that. But, she said if this test comes back with the lypmh nodes then he will be looking at probably 3 rounds of VP16 and Cisplatin. I am really worried about the side effects of this, how he will handle it and what I can do for him to make things as good as I can. Also, if there is any other information that ya'll think will help us I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance,
Wanda

[Rollwithit]

Glad you found the forum, sorry you have been affected by TC. Bryan was diagnosed on Aug. 25, 2008 with non seminoma TC. He began chemo this past Monday. (3xBEP) There are many members of this forum that can answer the questions that you have. They all make you feel so welcome. Ask anything, someone has been there before and will have insight. ;)

[dadmo]

Wanda:
Wow want a rotten time you guys have had. How's Mark doing with all this? Anyway VP16 is better known as etoposide and when given with Cisplatin (Platinol) it's called EP. Hundreds of our members have received that as treatment including my son who was give 4xEP (4 round of EP). You can start some research by reading this page (http://tcrc.acor.org/chemo.html).
Feel free to ask anything and then ask it again to be sure. We've all been down this road and we understand the fear and confusion.

[LBu]

Hi Wanda.
Sorry to hear what your going through but your not alone. We are in the process of staging my husbands seminoma and this forums been fantastic.There are lots of people that have gone through this that will give you brilliant advice.Good luck for the scan and thinking of you.Let us know what you find out.

[Fed]

Hey Wanda,

I don't have much else to add since you and everybody else have covered the bases. Just keep in mind that if there is lymphadenopathy shown on the PET, then the appropriate course of action is either 3xBEP or 4xEP, not 3xEP.

Best of luck with the results, and I hope he is taking it easy and recovering well. Cheers,

Fed

[markswife]

Thanks so much for all of the input. I thought that she told us 3xEP.......I may be mistaken though. I will be sure to ask her about it next week after the Petscan. Hopefully that won't be a problem though and we can just deal with the carboplatin. Regardless, we are doing everything we are told at this point, we just feel like we need to keep gathering information so we will know as much as possible. He is more than willing to put up with the chemo as long as it gets us to the other side of this nightmare. If you guys happen to think any other info that could benefit us please post! Again, thanks for all of the help. You guys are great!

[MRMRSU]

Hi Wanda...just lending another set of shoulders for you to lean on. You and Mark are not alone in your fight.

[dadmo]

Wanda:
Have you considered sperm banking?

[markswife]

Wanda:
Have you considered sperm banking?

We have one daughter that is almost 5. It took us 7 years to have her and that was finally after invitro fertilization. Needless to say getting pregnant hasn't come easy for us anyway! (I have Polysystic Ovarian Syndrome.) We have talked for the last few years about if we wanted another and the fight that we would have again and pretty much decided that we would close that chapter in our life. Now after finding all of this out we KNOW that we just want Mark to get better and focus on that. We will be thankful for our one blessing:D. The most important thing to is keeping us together and being happy and healthy. So, no more kids for us......and I think that I can finally be completely at peace saying that;).


Wanda