How Hope Erased My Fear of Testicular Cancer

Brian Sluga is now a testicular cancer survivor after receiving the diagnosis when he was 20 years old. Catch up on Brian's blogs here!

Hope has a way of multiplying — it brings people together and brings joy to others. Growing up, hope was my secret childhood friend, always wanting the game to continue. As a twenty-something, I saw my future as one filled with challenges and competition, never fearing what lay ahead. Now, my hope is that everyone facing their own cancer journey will have the best possible outcome.

A sacrifice starts with a promise and then grows into something much greater. Hope is something we are all capable of possessing. It means that you believe in all the craziness that you have endured was for a purpose. Time is an interesting one for me as a cancer survivor. I hoped that time would be my friend. One that I could count on through thick and thin like a best friend. I had no way of knowing how long I had to live. Time never makes a promise or lies. Just like that bend in the road, it just is.

When diagnosed, I did not know what was ahead. But I knew it was going to change everything. The fact is that we are all linked to time. Build your own mental toughness and be resilient by examining what you control in your life today and make realistic timelines for achieving your goals.

Life has a funny way of surprising us and showing how strong we really are. I felt as if God tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Wake up!” I needed to change and take some risks. I have heard and believe that your risk is to be taken as therein lies your life’s task.

Hope is not the direction of a collapsed bridge sitting over a sinkhole. It is acceptance that you will have tomorrow. A hope for better, healthier days ahead. I listened to my gut and had hope for my future. No matter where you are on your cancer journey, hope is what will get you where you need to be.

Back in high school, I wanted to listen to music and fall in love. I was a social butterfly and thought all the shiny bits of my life would come together. After all the doctor appointments, stress of college courses, and changing majors, in my mind, the jury was out.

As I looked out the window of my bedroom, I listened to the sweet patter of rain. I loved having rainwater hit my body on a morning run. I liked hearing drops falling on our overhead awning. The surroundings getting washed over, trees wiggling and growing dense with dampness. It also sometimes meant a cloudy day of college classes and a day people were moody.

During those cancer days, others assumed that I had a similar student schedule as they. Most never knew I had a running routine every morning and every eight weeks, regular blood and chest exams. What I learned from these experiences was that on the road of life, someone is always a couple of steps ahead and behind me.

To be clear, the world is full of uncertainty. We have great ideas from all around the world. But we must never let anything get in the way of our hope. Hope remains alive in me today. I seek and find the wonder in life. Since my cancer, I say to friends and family, “One must have thick skin during and after recovery.” It is your personal struggle, and you may not know how to answer the many questions that come your way. There can be a lot of outside noise that you need to avoid, including well-intentioned but insensitive ideas about how you should be feeling.

When I received the “all clear” from the doctors, it was the biggest news of my life. I was a college student, and the innocent question always was, “What do you want to be when you graduate?” It always left me feeling insecure. I did not have a crystal ball into the future. But I knew what I could hope to happen in the next three months and planned for that. My plan did not need to be for five years. I just needed to succeed in small ways. Kind of like how I managed my cancer recovery.

It was hard to put into words how important this time in my life meant to me. I needed to feel there was hope in the world in a personal way. I did not need to answer all the questions that came hurling at me about my future all at once. Hope allowed me to seek, focus, and be my own cheerleader. I looked at life’s challenges as a competition.

Over the next fourteen months, I set small goals for other physical challenges, which helped me to complete several marathons and run faster each time. All I wanted was to have a goal of moving on as a survivor. To have a true sense of purpose. One that could change the lives of people. Not just saying to myself, “Thanks, God, for saving me.” My hope was for a better tomorrow. Hope, faith, friends and family are what helped me meet my challenges head-on. I hope you all have the same.

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