What’s it like to be diagnosed with testicular cancer: Two brothers share their stories

What’s It Like To Be is a regular listener.co.nz column where New Zealanders from all walks of life share first-hand experiences of living with and overcoming health challenges. Here, brothers Harrison and Fletcher Stott tell Paulette Crowley about being diagnosed with and treated for testicular cancer.

Every year, around 170 New Zealand men are diagnosed with testicular cancer and for eight of them, the disease is fatal. It’s common in teen and young men aged 15-44 but is highly treatable, especially if it is detected early.

It was 2019 and I was running a marathon in Oslo, of all places. While I was training, I kept getting chafing on my balls. Being a classic male, I didn’t do anything about it until the actual day. I was like, ‘God, how am I going to do this? I’m going to be running for three hours.’

I went back to London, where I was living at the time, and a couple of weeks later I thought I should see a doctor. She told me I had a cyst on my left testicle, which is apparently really normal. She said, “I can tell you’re a bit concerned about it, so we’ll get an ultrasound done”.

I knew things were bad when I heard how many beeps were going on during the ultrasound. The next day, they called me in and said they’d found four tumours inside my testicle, unrelated to the cyst, and that they needed to take some samples. That meant they had to remove the testicle. A few weeks later, I had the diagnosis – two of the tumours were cancerous. When I heard the word cancer, I thought, “That’s for old people, not for young, fast, exciting people living in London.” So it was definitely quite a shock. I was only 28.

After my testicle was removed, they had to do a CAT scan to make sure the cancer hadn’t spread. I had to wait about eight weeks before I knew the result; that period gave me anxiety like I’ve never had before.

Eventually, on Christmas Eve, they told me, “You’re fine”. I didn’t need chemotherapy but needed to go through a monitoring programme, which was essentially monthly blood tests, and a chest x-ray and CAT scan every few months for a period of two years. After that they give you yearly tests for another few years.

I was discharged from monitoring in November last year. It was an amazing relief. I burst into tears; I was in a bit of a state.

I’m 34 now and run a business in Auckland. I’ve got two kids and have just gotten on with my life. I’m so lucky to have come through the way I did.