Below is the interview you created answered in Rich's own words. Have any other questions? Send them on!
Q. How did you become aware you had cancer? Was there pain? A. Well, a girl I was seeing noticed my left testicle was completely rock hard. I hadn't noticed. I was born with it undescended, which made it a prime candidate to become cancerous later in life. There was no pain at all. In fact, pain is good. It means that you probably don't have cancer and have an infection, like epiditmytis. However, Lance Armstrong had pain, but that's because it had progressed to a horrifying degree.
Relatively speaking, I caught it early, though the strain of cancer I had was the fastest spreading and most dangerous (same as Lance's). It had managed to spread a bit to my lungs too, making me a stage III. As of now, it's in remission.
Q. Did they estimate how long you had cancer before you knew? A. I actually think my body was telling me via several dreams I had 2 years ago. They involved my testicles being put into vice grips. I'd wake up screaming! I also found out my last name was an Gaelic spelling of "Armstrong". Also very serendipitous. This later gave me a lot of hope when times got tough, but I should've seen it as an omen of things to come when I first came across it.
Q. Do you have advice for others? A. My advice for others is to play with yourself, often. The sooner you catch this, the better.
Q. What is chemo like? A. Chemo is difficult, but with the right mindset and support you can do it. I'm not sure how to really describe it, but if you go in with a fearful attitude everything will be a thousand times worse. The hardest part is getting pumped full of noxious chemicals and still not having a guarantee any of it will save your life. You really have to surrender to life, the universe, find a higher power within yourself or externally, and dig deep. I'm a resilient bastard, and managed to get through it pretty well, though there were some serious hiccups along the way. It'll be a while before I'm truly out of the woods. To be honest, the cure (chemo) was worse than the cancer. The worse you feel, the better you're getting apparently.
Q. What is the next step? A. The next steps are to manage these left over side effects. My lungs may have been damaged permanently from the chemo, though I'm hoping it's repairable or another issue unrelated. I have all kinds of pains in places that are scary to have pains in, so I'm just hoping for the best right now, waiting it out for the chemo to start leaving my system. A big part of dealing with cancer is dealing with fear, and learning acceptance. I have to go to checkups every 2 months for the next year, then every 4 months the next year, up to 5 years total. They say the hardest part is actually just showing up to these check ups.
Q. Are there long term side effects from chemo or the disease? A. Hopefully, like a lot of TC survivors, I'll go on to be just fine. It will take some time to heal up, but I'm hoping to move forward with what's left of me and enjoy the rest of my life. This experience has taught me the importance of health on all levels, that healing, not curing, is really the most holistic thing you can do. What I mean by that is seeing cancer as an opportunity to really look at life on a primal level. It's very liberating to face death, but it's also extremely difficult. But it stripped me down to my basic being, and allowed a lot of long term healing to take place that I had not been able to do on my own. A lot of issues resolved themselves. My heart opened up to all the love I received from family and friends. It had to! I do believe cancer is something that has to be healed on spiritual, physical, and emotional levels of being. Luckily for me, that process has been kick started a hundred fold and I feel better than I have ever felt in my life, though I still struggle through some of these side effects. And I don't really have any guarantees right now, but I'm very hopeful that if I listen to my body and soul I can prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future by being very proactive in my life and reducing all stress and healing all physical and emotional pain naturally.
I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has helped me. Without this support, I would not have gotten through this experience. I thank you for all your prayers and love.
