What cancer were you diagnosed with?

testicular cancer

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What age were you diagnosed?

21 

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What helped you to thrive?

I would say the most important thing which has helped me, is just being able to sit down with young people that I didn't know but in a way I did, because we had shared an experience. The hardest thing I found when I went back to "normal life" was that it took me almost 6 months to realise that I actually needed to find those people to have those conversations with. Because the people in my life could just not help me talk through the feelings I was dealing with.

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Ethan's Story

I first realised something was wrong when my girlfriend noticed that one of my testes was a lot harder than the other one. I really became concerned over the next couple of weeks, when it began to increase in size. I was away in Belfast at the time. However it was not until the Easter break, that I was diagnosed because I was unable to get a hospital appointment, in Belfast before I left. I was diagnosed with Testicular cancer. Even once the diagnose came that was only the beginning of what has become a difficult process. 
 
The most difficult part was not only the waiting, but also the realisation that life won’t continue as normal any time soon. You can’t make any plans; you can only hope for the best. The main thing I’ve learned is if something looks wrong, it probably is.

Read more of Ethan's story here:

My Experience of Cancer - Ethan McLaughlin