My husband was diagnosed with TC when he was 32.
There was no pain, no outwardly visible tumor.
Ironically, he had been seeing a urologist for several months for epidydimitis (recurrent infection of ureter), he had a CT scan of his back, and it wasn't discovered. He had a lot of complaints about his back, his peeing, so I thought he was being a hypochondriac.
What happened is he came to me and told me that his testicle used to feel like a hard boiled egg, and now it felt like a rock. That was the main thing. He just didn't feel the same there. When he ejaculated, he felt a pulling. There was no visible tumor. I ran a search on the net on "hardened" and "testicle" and tons of cancer sites came up. Well, I freaked. I called and scheduled an ultrasound and a visit with the urologist. The secretary actually told me that I had no business scheduling the ultrasound, but I said it's the only thing to rule it out, and it is happening. He went to the urologist, who felt nothing, but agreed to the ultrasound. 3 days later my husband was in surgery to have a tumor removed. It was seminoma, it had just started to spread to the lymphs. He had 5 weeks radiation. He has been clean since.
Right before the surgery, I took a good look at him. I realized that his cancerous testicle had shrunk a lot. The other side hung much lower. I realized that if he had looked like that when we first met, I would have definitely noticed. But when you are married and live together daily, you don't see the changes.
Notably, he had an undescended testicle at birth. It eventually dropped, but that doesn't mean anything. It is the single most common predisposer to TC. Studies show that it is what causes the undescended testicle that also causes the TC. Usually the "normal" looking testicle and urinary track is structurally not right on analysis.
Get checked. It's one of the most common cancers in young men.
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