"So, a couple weeks ago, I had the fun anniversary of being on hormones three years. Tomorrow is a different kind of anniversary."
This link is to a journal post by Jocelyn Samara, a trans web comic artist on dA. Not so coincidentally, her web comic, "Rain", is the story of a trans high school girl and how she deals with family, friends, and the world in general. But this post is no comic. In it Jocelyn talks about dealing with testicular cancer. There is some information that all of us might find useful. Jocelyn talks about apologizing for a bummer post, but for me at least, her frank discussion displays the inner strength that helped her get through this.
Below are two links. The first is to her journal, the second to her webcomic. If you choose to read her comic, I strongly recommend start at the very beginning.
She also has a Rain Facebook page. Rain on FB
Enjoy!
Comments
Castration
To try to remove any element of fright from the post above, I must have been extremely fortunate. I had my castration for an entirely different reason however.
The minor procedure, was done with local anesthesia, in the doctor's office. It is usually done through an incision of about 2.5 mm. Each gonad comes out separately by excising supportive tissue. When it is out the blood vessels are cut and the bleeding stopped by cautery. The Vas
Deferens is cut and cauterized as necessary. The procedure is repeated for the second gonad if one is present.
The area of the procedure is suctioned to remove any surgical debris and the incision is closed with several self dissolving stitches. Surgical glue is starting to be used by some.
The patient is advised to stay inactive for a few days, and to return if complications occur. Sometimes prophylactic Antibiotics are prescribed.
I had no one in my life to get me home, so I lied to the staff, saying my ride was in the lobby, and drove myself home.
Perhaps the poster required 4 operations because of the cancer or because there were complications.
On the farm, we did calves without anesthesia but left the incision open to drain. There were rarely complications. Humans are so fragile in comparison.
You missed the point, Gwen
The point isn't what this girl had to go through medically, the point is this could happen to many of us, the ones that have been chemically castrated are still vulnerable. If the testicles are still there, than you can still get testicular cancer. She is also pointing out that if they hadn't been watching her hormone levels closely it wouldn't have been caught as soon as it was.
As for treatment, testicular cancer does not remain in the testicles, it spreads to other parts of the body, like the lymph nodes or even the brain. According to the source I'm reading, http://www.cancer.org/cancer/testicularcancer/detailedguide/... , Stage Three can often result in multiple surgeries as new tumors make themselves known. This is far more complicated than castrating farm animals, or even people that don't have testicular cancer.
So really, don't belittle what she went through. This is not a 'woe-is-me' post, this is a 'this could happen to you so talk to your doctor' post. If her warning saves one person from going through testicular cancer, then it has done what she intended.
Edit/Add If having cancer isn't supposed to scare the readers a bit then you must think your invulnerable. One of my brothers had it (testicular cancer) about 10 yrs ago, chemo managed to stop his. At one point he joked in an email that it looked like he was going to need a balls transplant or at least something that would look like balls. I replied he'd probably need big brass ones! Hey, it got him to laugh, which he hadn't been doing much of.
I went outside once. The graphics weren' that great.