Prostate and testicular cancer survivors speak out

[SteveH]

Two men who’ve been through cancer treatment now help others, stress importance of speaking about the illness
By: Jessica Wynne Lockhart Published on Mon Sep 02 2013

Kyle Dupuis was the model of a healthy young man. In his early 20s, he didn’t smoke or drink, he ate healthy food and worked out five days a week. So in February of 2008, when he lifted a box at work and bumped himself in the groin region, the resulting pain wasn’t a cause for immediate alarm.

“I didn’t think much of it at the time,” he recalls. But when the pain persisted, Dupuis went to a walk-in clinic, where he had an ultrasound and further testing. The one thing that had never even occurred to him was confirmed a month later—he had testicular cancer.

“It really took me by storm. I was 24 years old at the time and the last thing I was ever thinking about was cancer,” he says. “It felt completely surreal.” Dupuis had his right testicle removed in May 2008, and after the cancer spread to his lymph nodes a few months later, he went through nine weeks of chemotherapy at the Windsor Regional Cancer Centre.

“At 24, you think that you’re almost invincible,” he says. “But that gives you bit of a wake-up call that life can be taken away from you.”

Now a peer support volunteer with CancerConnection, a nationwide telephone support program run by the Canadian Cancer Society, Dupuis shares his story and experience with other young men who have recently been diagnosed with testicular cancer.

“You kind of want to reach out and talk to someone,” says Dupuis about his decision to lend support to others. Talking about it, he says, is also key. Testicular cancer has a survival rate of 97 per cent, with early detection increasing the chances of successful treatment.

“Having testicular cancer was something that was tough for me to talk about. I don’t think that guys in general like to talk about that,” says Dupuis. “I think that should change because I don’t know what would have happened had I let it go longer.”

Bill Nolan, 66, a prostate cancer survivor, echoes Dupuis’ sentiments. “A lot of males are really reluctant to talk about anything dealing with their sexuality,” he says. After Nolan was diagnosed with, and treated for prostate cancer, including having his prostate, lymph nodes and seminal vesicles removed, he began volunteering as the co-chair of the Prostate Cancer Association of Ottawa. “Women with breast cancer—they talk about it,” Nolan points out. “For males, don’t be afraid to deal with it. It’s not a death sentence.”

Both Nolan and Dupuis are living proof of this. This month, Dupuis is celebrating Men’s Cancer Awareness Month with his final CAT Scan, and his
five-year anniversary of being cancer-free.

http://www.thestar.com/life/cancerresou ... k_out.html