TeamXbox Forum Member Cancer Fund

Nimble Cat

Over at TeamXbox there is a forum member, and moderator, with a rare form of testicular cancer. They recently started a fundraiser to help him pay some of his medical bills.

The fundraiser was initially set to end tonight, but it has been extended indefinitely.

Here is his story:

In 2007, when I was 22, I had a lot of back pain that progressively got worse throughout the year. I saw 3 doctors about it that basically laughed me out of their offices with mild pain-killers before I finally went and saw my wife's (then girlfriend) family doctor. She thought something seemed weird about my back pain because there was no injury to my back or anything so she ordered some blood tests.

The blood test in December 2007 showed that I was slightly anemic. This made them want to do a catscan and check me out to be safe. When I had it done the CT technician came out to me with a grave look on her face and told me to go see the doctor right away. I knew something was really wrong at that point. The doctor let me know that I had advanced testicular cancer and it had spread to my lungs and lymphatic system all throughout my body.

The cancer has a good curability rate and I was able to get rid of it for the most part with 12 weeks of chemotherapy in early 2008 until April. The chemotherapy was supposed to be a cure but it left behind a good chunk of my biggest tumor that had originally been about 11 centimeters. It had grown there in my abdomen for a long long time because I didn't have any of the other typical symptoms of testicular cancer (nut pain, etc.).

It was determined that I should have an RPLND surgery to remove the tumor. They felt no need to rush it as the tumor was pretty stagnant so it was set up for August of '08. In the mean time, I got married and was able to have a wonderful summer. In August I had my surgery and it was mostly successful. It's pretty complex and it took the surgeon 5 hours to dig around in me and get all of the cancer he could see.

In September I had a catscan done to make sure everything was gone and the unexpected and unlikely happened. The cancer was back and had spread to my liver. There were several large spots. My doctor was blown away by their size after having only a month or so to grow. It was terrible news and he gave me only a 25% chance of living more than a couple years.

The last strong option for treatment was to send me to Indiana to see Dr. Lawrence Einhorn. He is a famous doctor in the specialty of testicular cancer. He invented the chemotherapy for it and is the doctor Lance Armstrong saw for his treatments. This is where I'm at now. I've been getting two stem cell transplants and 3 rounds of high dose chemotherapy (5x higher than a normal chemotherapy regimen) over the course of a few months. The good news is that the doctors here say my chances of curing this disease are much better than the Utah doctors said. My chances of having this all go away and not come back are 70% now.

The early test results are all positive. The treatment has pretty much destroyed me physically but I'm recovering now. My blood shows no traces of the cancer at this point. I'm having another catscan done soon too and that will hopefully show that the tumors are all gone. We are all hoping and praying that this works so that my wife and I can go back to a somewhat normal life. I haven't been able to work or go to school (I'm actually prepping for med school) in over a year now and it has definitely made us appreciate the little things in life that were so easy to take for granted before. Not much has gone well for us lately but our luck is coming around I think. Anyways, that is the best summary I can come up with. My blog has more detailed information spread out over the course of my treatment. Merry Christmas everyone!

-Sean

He is a recently married guy who's had a tough year. I know most of you probably don't visit TeamXbox, I know I don't anymore, but I thought some of you might be interested in donating a dollar or two to help a fellow gamer out. They've already raised $4000, which should cover his medical costs, for now.

Here is a link to the page at TeamXbox, with a PayPal link at the bottom.

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/18410/Sean-Martella-Fundraiser

guar

Not to be an ass or anything, but I think this was posted already. Was the other thread locked, or did it get lost in the archives?

Hahnsoo1

Original post here:
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=78748