This month has been a whirlwind of activity. Between my brother's cancer, surgery, chemo/radiation news, and some stuff of our own, it has been an emotional roller coaster.
Dan and Ali have decided on the course of treatment for Dan's illness (check out their blog--linked on the side), and he gets his first treatment tomorrow. I wish him the best of luck. I have no doubt that the drugs will knock out the yucky cancer cells throughout his entire body. Joe and I are planning on going to see them at the end of February for a long weekend.
As far as Joe and I are concerned, we have some health issues of our own. Joe's history is pretty interesting. He was born with a "pelvic kidney," which means that his left kidney was not in the correct anatomical position when he was born. One of the common side effects of this syndrome is the absence of a vas deferens on the affected side. When Joe was 22 years old, he was also diagnosed with testicular cancer on the right side. Unlike Dan's cancer, Joe's was a non-seminoma. The testicle was removed, and his only course of treatment consisted of (and still consists of) close monitoring.
Joe had a couple of semen analyses since his surgery, and they've come up blank. It's called azospermia (absence of sperm). I've done some research about this and what can be done to have children. We've made an appointment to see Dr. Jarow at Hopkins in February-March. There are a couple of procedures that can be done to harvest sperm directly from the testicle. We will have to see what Dr. Jarow says. (urology.jhu.edu) Until then, both Joe and I have appointments to see our primary care physicians to get regular check-ups and any labs that the fertility/urology doctors might need.
Hopefully we'll have more information at the end of February.
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