If you’re suffering from a severe health condition, all you’re going to care about is getting better soon.
For one young man from Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, the ongoing cause of pain was only resolved once he took a pregnancy test that came back positive.
Byron Geldard was 18 years old when he finished high school and began experiencing abdominal pain. His general practitioner suggested that the reason behind the aching is muscle soreness caused by his training.
Taking him at his word, the teenager was glad that he was able to spend summer vacations with his friends. As they returned from their trip, Byron paid another visit to his doctor who noticed a lump in his abdomen. He immediately referred Geldard for an ultrasound.
After the scanning, Byron was told that he had a cancerous tumor that managed to spread all the way to his lungs. Unfortunately, the doctors were unable to determine which type of cancer it was. “They didn’t know what type of cancer I had,” Byron explained. “I could have had four or five different types.
After being sent to the Cambridge Teenage Cancer Trust, the experts asked him to offer urine sample for the pregnancy test. Testicular cancer is a disease that causes the production of the same hCG hormone that is being produced during the pregnancy by the placenta. Therefore, pregnancy tests can be used to diagnose or rule out testicular cancer.
As the test came back positive, doctors knew exactly what they are dealing with. Byron, however, was shocked and couldn’t easily accept this news. “There I was with a positive pregnancy test and something growing inside of me. I thought I was going to end up in a documentary,” he said.
Byron explained that the day after diagnosis, he already started the chemotherapy. “I would go in for five days in a row and have the chemo constantly. It really took it out of me – my brain was muddled and I found it hard to concentrate on long films or books,” the young man recalled.
The high hormone levels gradually declined, and the tumor began to shrink. In December, later that year, Byron underwent a surgery in which the remaining tumor was physically removed from his abdomen. In January, the tests finally revealed that he was free of cancer.
“It was a really strange feeling to be told I was ok again – you’re just sort of expected to go back to normal, but my mindset has completely changed,” Byron admitted. “Before all this happened you think your life is pretty much guaranteed until you’re about 85 but it gave me the realization of my own mortality – I sort of had an early midlife crisis,” he continued according to the Telegraph.
Nowadays, Byron’s goal is to spread the awareness and reduce the number of casualties caused by this disease. “Cancer is no longer a death sentence and I would like to spread that message,” he said.
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