I have been on this site about 20 times and chickened out of posting until now! The last time I used an online forum, was when our first baby was stillborn 16 years ago and i desperately needed to speak to people who understand the uniqueness of my despair! Today I feel I need that support again. We went on to have three more beautiful children, the eldest being our 14yr old boy! Just over 4 months ago, he came to me after a shower and told me he had found a lump in his testicle! We saw the GP who referred him for a ultrasound. Bizarrely, the sonographer who scanned him, had scanned me many a time, through my complicated pregnancies and knew our family.. it was nice to see a familiar face, but it also made it harder for him to hide his concern! Basically, 2 days later, we were told that it was a tumour. We couldn't have been hit harder, if a train had run in to us face on! Within in 10 days of that diagnosis, we had been seen by a specialist consultant and referred to their partner hospital for surgery to remove the testical asap... He was in theatre for 1hr 17 minutes and around 32 seconds.. I counted them on the pager they gave us to let us know when he was in recovery! It was an eternity, I felt physically sick and was frozen to my chair as I saw my husband pace the floor out of the corner of my eye. He was terrified as he went in, and came out looking like a 14yr old baby! The enormity of this on him was terrifyingly obvious, when he suffered his first ever panic attack, leaving the hospital that evening. Since then, he has had 2 CT scans and a bone scan. A week ago today, we finally received the news that they believed he was all clear and their would be no need for any chemo! I was overwhelming over the moon, so much so that in the car on the way home, I almost passed out. I had for almost half an hour, breathed in proper breaths not consumed with tension and the oxygen I was enhaling was making me dizzy! Since then, we have been trying to relax, enjoy the news and get back to normal, but what is normal now! I feel almost as shell shocked from the good news as I did from the bad! I suppose, when you get hit by a truck, you have wounds to heal and scars to mend so you dont just get up and carry on, even if you feel you should! We are a very close family, and our other two babes aged 13 & 8 have been by their brothers side at every appointment and every step. we are all struggling... can anyone relate?
