Catch Up with Don’t Give Up on Testicular Cancer - Season 3, Episode 10
Intro
[00:00:00] Welcome to Don't Give Up on Testicular Cancer, a podcast where testicular cancer survivors, caregivers, and others who have navigated the cancer journey share their stories. The podcast comes to you from the Max Mallory Foundation, a nonprofit family foundation focused on educating about testicular cancer in honor and in memory of Max Mallory, who died in 2016 at the young age of 22 from testicular cancer. Had he survived, Max wanted to help young adults with cancer. This podcast helps meet that goal. Here now is your host, Joyce Lofstrom, Max's mom and a young adult cancer survivor. [00:01:00]
Joyce Lofstrom
[00:01:10] Hi, this is Joyce, and I'm coming to you on a Friday morning, late Friday morning in October, the last Friday in October for this year. It's been a while since we posted a new Don't Give Up on Testicular Cancer podcast, so I wanted to let you know we're still around. It's just been a delay on my part to get some people to talk with and get the interviews going.
[00:01:36] But I just wanted to give you some background on the podcast and just really an update, I guess, on the timing. We're at the end of October, and this was the time in 2015 when our son, Max, found out that he had testicular cancer. He went to the emergency room of a hospital, and we all met him there.
[00:02:04] And that evening is when we found out that he had testicular cancer.
It just so happened that I decided to do this (podcast) today, and it made me think about that time of year with Max back in; how many years ago is that? That was eight years ago when this journey started with him. We started the podcast through our foundation, oh, I'd say maybe three years later, and here we are.
[00:02:31] One of the podcast best practices is a solo podcast like I'm doing and talking about what's going on or news or anything related to our topic. And so that's what I want to do with this, but it's primarily to let you know that we are not stopping the podcast. We're just catching up.
And so, when I look at some of the news items that come in around testicular cancer, a lot of what I see is related to P. F. A. S. Those chemicals that, they're called forever chemicals that appear in water. They appear in firefighters’ garb, different places that seem to be linked to an incidence of certain cancers, including testicular cancer.
[00:03:25] I've seen a lot of headlines around that. We had a guest about a year ago who talked a bit about that topic, and I'm trying to get another person, a researcher, to come and talk with me as well. So that's a topic that's coming up that I hope you will be interested in.
I guess the other thing I have seen a lot is just the age range of people of men who get testicular cancer. Some of these young people are teenagers who have contracted testicular cancer.
[00:04:00] And it's interesting to me to see that and to know why that happens. I don't know. None of us know, obviously, but I think the age range is much younger than sometimes we think it is.
[00:04:16] The last story I saw was a high school senior who wound up, I think he was from the South, wound up going to San Francisco for intensive treatment. He had Stage 4 testicular cancer. So, so far so good. They're treating it.
But I think that's a message to any listener that if you have a high school student in your home, a male student, a son, or a grandchild, don't forget to remind him to check and make sure that there are no lumps or anything unusual in his testicles.
[00:04:57] Many of the people I've talked to over these three years, younger people, really people of all ages, nobody ever suggested to them, nobody, which I would primarily say a doctor. Still, you know, no one even knew about testicular cancer or thought about it. Then you find a lump. What does that mean? So, you ignore it.
So, it's the whole thing, as you know, is building awareness, which is a good segue into Movember, which is coming up starting in the month of November. It's an effort, a global effort to raise awareness about men's health, not just testicular cancer, but men's health in general, depression, cancer, things that men often don't want to talk about.
[00:05:46] So, if you haven't gotten involved in Movember, I encourage you to do that. And it is, as I'm pronouncing it, it's not November, it's Movember, M-O-V-E-M-B-E-R. So, that's something going on relatively soon. It would be worthwhile to check into…I've talked to several people as well who have been very active in that initiative and raised funds for them. So, check that out if you want to do more to help with testicular cancer.
And I guess the other topic I see in some of these alerts…I get there's some new research out always. I want to read more peer-reviewed journals to understand that more than I do right now, and I don't spend much time reading those journals.
[00:06:39] Sometimes they're hard to access unless you're a medical professional, but you know, I think there are interesting things to know about—any kind of treatment advances and so forth. And for us on the podcast, one way we can do that is to have some medical professionals be guests.
[00:07:00] And so that's another thing that I'll be working on to have a doctor or a nurse or someone who's been involved with testicular cancer to talk with us about just what's going on with it and advances.
One area that I think is interesting is robotic surgery, where some of the RPLND surgeries now have been performed that way.
[00:07:23] I wonder if any of you listening have had your surgery done that way and what you thought about it. It's supposed to be, not supposed to be; it is a much shorter recovery time. You don't have that big scar on your abdomen. I don't know how many hospitals use it right now, but I think it sounds like an advancement that would benefit everybody who has to go through it.
The other topic, too, which I think has been solved as I record, was a shortage of cancer drugs and not just again for testicular cancer.
[00:08:00] But cisplatin was hard to get for a while. I think they've come up with alternative manufacturers of it so that it is available to treat cancer.
[00:08:10] I think, as a patient, that would be pretty unnerving to know that you can be treated, but you don't have the drug because there's a shortage. To me, that's something. I haven't experienced a lot to be told that there's a shortage. I've had a delay in getting my insulin. Just the drugstore says, oh, we don't have it.
[00:08:33] We'll have it in a couple of days. But I've never been told you can't get it. And that's probably a situation of privilege here in America and with me. But I think just paying attention to what's going on with how we manufacture the chemo mix for patients, any patient, is a topic that - it's a new one to even think about.
[00:09:00] Max's dad, Chuck Mallory, if you follow us, you've seen all the social media posts that he puts up on LinkedIn and Instagram. I call it repeat performances, but podcasts we've done in the past. He will repost them so that if you didn't get to listen to him the first time now, here they are again.
[00:09:19] So, I hope you have seen that and been able to listen to some of the ones that you might've missed.
So that's kind of it. I guess on the podcast front, on the technical side, you know, one of the podcasts, what should I call them? Leaders, coaches, you know, people who do a lot of podcasts and teach people how to do it is where I learned this idea of doing a short podcast just to talk to everybody and say hello.
[00:09:46] In terms of my background, I started doing podcasts at one of my jobs. I guess it's been about 15 years ago, and I learned how to do it myself. I just sat down and figured it out.
[00:10:00] The basics, you know, I'm talking very, very basic. And so, when I started this podcast, I did more research to update what I knew.
[00:10:09] My stepson, Will, helped me get the equipment, and Max's brother, John, with his dad, we figured out a title. I put some names together, and we all agreed on this one - Don't Give Up on Testicular Cancer. And, you know, it's been a true family effort. So, we will continue that as we finish up 2023 and head into 2024.
[00:10:35] And I know there are other people out there who in their respective locations are raising awareness of testicular cancer. And I know several of you have offered to work with us and our foundation. And so, we haven't done that yet. And maybe that's another thing that we can look forward to in 2024 and help not only raise awareness but maybe get our message out to a new audience in a different part of the country.
Outro
[00:11:04] Thank you for listening to this episode of Don't Give Up on Testicular Cancer. If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to our program on your favorite podcast directory. You can also visit the Max Mallory Foundation at www.maxmalloryfoundation.com/podcast to listen to previous podcast episodes or donate to the foundation. And join us again next time for another episode of Don't Give Up on Testicular Cancer.
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