“It was December 11th, 2014. The day before my 26th birthday. The doctor called me and told me I had testicular cancer. My wife was 8 months pregnant. We thought it was the best time of our lives, and then we were hit with a tough roadblock. The toughest part was seeing my wife. You know, it was one month before having our kid. I found out on a Thursday and on Friday they had set me up for surgery on Monday. After surgery, everything was good for a year. But then, the beginning of January this year, I was at my year check up and they found that it had come back in a lymph node in my stomach. That was tougher than the first time because I thought after a year, it was never going to come back and I never had to worry about it. This time my wife was 4 months pregnant. Having to tell her that it came back was so hard. I get teary eyed every time I think about it because I just hate seeing the people I love have to deal with it. A couple of weeks after finding out it was back, I started chemo. In total, that was around 12 weeks. I tried to prepare myself for chemo but it was brutal. I was always exhausted. After about a week, I lost all of my hair. I constantly felt like I was going to throw up. The whole thing was bad. Going through chemo, changed me a lot because it really made me more aware of how sweet the little things are. I finished my last session 7 or 8 weeks ago and I recently had my first check up and it was in remission. I’ve always been a really active guy, so I look forward to being active again. Especially with my daughter, soon to be two daughters, just being able to go outside and play with them. It will be fun to be able to do stuff with the family and to watch them grow up and become more active. In the back of my mind now, I think I will always worry about my health. After surgery, I really kind of stopped thinking about it. But once it came back, I think now, it will kind of always be in the back of mind, more so that anything could happen, so don’t ever take this time for granted. I can’t even begin to explain the support I’ve been given. My family supported me from day one. Friends too. But then it just kept growing and growing. It was like a whole community of support. I would go on Facebook and just read comments from people. It meant so much. I’m sure people don’t think one little Facebook comment they made can make a difference, but I probably read each comment 50 times just because it was so encouraging. Just all the people who were on my side and thinking about me and my family. Rooting for us. Praying for us. I couldn’t imagine the amount of support that I got. It was incredibly humbling and forever I will be in debt to the community because it has been so much support. It’s just crazy. I can’t even explain it. I’m excited for what lies ahead. I don’t want to make it seem bigger than it is, but it’s kind of like a whole new lease on life. It was an eye opening experience. I was lucky in a sense that I was 26 years old and basically had a realization that life is pretty amazing. I’m pretty lucky. I’m looking forward, not forgetting about the past, but moving on from it.”