MY FIRST BATTLE WITH CANCER

DAVID JOHN WADE TESTICULAR AND SECONDARY LYMPH NODE CANCER 1982
 
I had my life all planned out. I was an officer in the Victorian Police Force, as my father had been. I was married with a young family. I had a new house and a mortgage I could comfortably afford. I was a sergeant by the age of 26 and I firmly believed my career was on target. I could foresee myself happily retired at the ripe old age of 65, living out my later years in relative peace and quiet, and eventually succumbing to life itself; passing away, without any fuss, in my sleep. That was the plan. Yet, unwillingly the plan was about to change.
 
I had just completed a drug raid on one of the state’s top ten criminals. The guy had attempted to shoot me - fortunately his shotgun was not loaded - but in the fracas, I had backed into a doorway and hit my back severely against the door. Needless to say, the guy escaped.
 
The injury did prove to be quite painful, but I just put it down to a natural hazard that goes with the call of duty. I wasn’t unduly concerned, for I played a game of Australian Rules football the following day. However it was during that football match, that it really started to bother me. I agreed to have a doctor check me out. He told me that I had a blood clot surrounding my kidneys, which was undoubtedly causing the pain, and there was some bruising as well, but nothing to be worried about. I was pleased that I was well enough to go ahead with my planned overseas holiday to Greece with friends. My wife was going to meet up with me a week after my departure. I had hardly been away three or four days when my back started playing up again. It became increasingly painful. My wife cancelled her flight, and I flew home. My doctor gave me a thorough examination and told me that it was just normal lower back pain, and with rest and time it would improve. But by this stage I was also experiencing pain and swelling in my left testicle, which I explained to my physician. He concurred that I had probably strained myself and twisted the left testicle due to the back injury. He decided that it would be best to operate in order to fix the twisted testicle in question.
 
Following the operation, this respected physician immediately visited me. Without pulling any punches he informed me that I had testicular cancer. The left testicle had been surgically removed, but there were further complications. I presented with secondary cancer in the lymph glands.
 
The nurses tried to console me. My two police partners who collected me from the hospital tried to console me. My wife’ to my amusement, threatened me that should I die of cancer she would kill me. My relatives visited to take a look at me: a picture of the living dead. Within three months, my life as I had known it, had done a full 360 degree turn around. I was battling the ‘C’ word and desperately fighting for my life. *
 
I was bombarded with questions from my oncologist during my first consultation. When he asked me if I suffered from any allergies, I sarcastically replied,  “ Yes, cancer”. As for my drinking habits I also told him that I consumed a bottle a day. He said, “ That is OK” - thinking beer.
 “That’s a bottle of scotch,” my wife elaborated.
“Well,” he replied. “Just as well you got cancer, you could have died. ”
He bantered on, but he knew I wasn’t listening. I was angry. I had a million and one thoughts running through my mind, and many more unanswered questions. I refused to accept the six-month sentence of death that the medical profession had so generously offered me.
 
My immediate thoughts turned to two of my other police colleagues. They had both just recently passed away with cancer. One died of brain cancer, the other from stomach cancer. Now it was my turn.
 
I remembered the big police radio, which used to overheat all the time. I would always carry that thing around, clipped to my belt. Had that been the cause of this cancer? If it wasn’t that, what was it? How did I get cancer? Why hadn’t anybody told me to check my testicles for lumps? How do men get testicular cancer? Why didn’t the doctors pick it up earlier when I had initially complained? I questioned the health education we had received at school. Why hadn’t we been warned about testicular cancer then?  My thoughts wandered irrationally. Then it suddenly occurred to me how fortunate I had been that I was not shot during the police raid.
 
For the life of me, I could not understand how a young, fit man gets testicular cancer. A certain part of me failed to grasp the reality of my diagnosis. I reluctantly adopted a ‘wait and see’ attitude, and agreed to have my chemotherapy treatment and any further operations that my doctors deemed necessary. There was nothing else for me to do. My fight had begun. It was a long and lonely battle and the thoughts of death were my constant companions.
 
I remember harbouring a real jealousy of men who died at war. At least, I argued, they had not died in vain. The treatment was excruciatingly painful. The pain from my treatment gave me a better understanding of how much a person could actually take, and for the first time in my life I felt that I could identify with the pain prisoners of war had to endure at the hands of their torturers.
 
I was constantly analysing death. That was until I instilled a belief in myself that I was going to beat this demon. I willed this belief, from the depths of my subconscious. I talked to myself constantly about the fight at hand. I promised God, that if I ever got out of bed again, I would pay him back some way for saving me. I kept demanding, to no one in particular, for a second chance. I kept telling myself that I was too young to die. I wanted to live and so I decided I would live. I swore God had given me a sign, for I had seen the sign of the cross, which was the positive sign. Mentally and physically, I concentrated on any possible positive energy. When the doctors announced that I had a 60% chance of survival if the chemotherapy was successful, I felt like shouting from the rooftops. I trained like an elite athlete in order to be receptive to the treatment. I was totally dedicated to the fight. I was not going to be beaten no matter what the odds. I was going to beat this devil.
 
I believed in God and I never stopped believing that I would live, and that I would survive. Physically, I started feeling a strange sort of inner strength developing. So much so, that it was as if I could feel my own body fighting the cancer. It was inexplicable and indescribable, but from that point on I knew I had started to win the race. I never once let my guard down. I remained focused and determined.
 
Following yet further surgery, my oncologists exuberantly informed me that they were confident I was clear of all the cancer from my secondary tumour in the lymph glands and that I was now in remission. My doctor made the comment that I did not appear surprised on receiving this news. I obediently told him that I was very pleasantly surprised actually, however, deep in my subconscious belief I had known that that was to be my outcome.
 
Few could believe I had beaten secondary cancer. I was in remission. However, nothing quite prepared me for what was to come next - the aftermath, as it were. I was told that because of the second operation for the removal of the tumour and all my secondary, the nerves in my back had been cut, affecting the entire groin region. The end result was: I would never be able to have any more children; I would never again be able to ejaculate; and I would never again have normal sexual relations. At 28 years of age, retired from the police force, with one testicle already removed and the risk of cancer developing in the other one within five years, the threat of a diminished sex life ahead of me left me feeling robbed of my manhood. My ego had taken a pounding.But hey! I had beaten cancer. At that point in time, I wasn’t sure which was worse.
 
From that moment on, I looked at life in a completely different way. Nothing was the same for me anymore. I couldn’t dwell on the past, yet I found the future difficult to consider. I felt locked in the present. However, I knew I had no other choice but to move on. I just had to accept the side effects of my treatment. I had changed, and was still changing. My friends of the past found some difficulty in understanding the person that I had now become. My personality changed. Life held a different meaning for me. I saw that I had to adapt to these imposed changes, embrace them and take alternative directions.
 
So I began my next chapter in life. I had been made a business offer. The job was to develop the poker machine industry In New South Wales. It meant leaving my family and Melbourne, and moving to Sydney, where I had to get a poker machine licence. The two businessmen with whom I had linked up, promised me 10% of the company if I achieved what I said I would achieve. They gave me $50 000 as start up fees. Nine years later, the company was sold for $170 million to a large American conglomerate. The two businessmen, whom I had considered associates of mine, reneged on their part of the deal and I received not one penny.
 
Without wallowing in self-pity, I went on to create the most successful gaming franchise in the country. It was the Casino Royale and in 1993, The Australian Franchise of The Year Award listed me as one of their top ten finalists. Seemingly, lady luck was not on my side, as the Australian Government suddenly decided to change the law, disallowing the use of the word ‘casino’ in private enterprise, but only in conjunction with the Government. I then went on to establish a major Asian hotel gaming company purchasing some twenty hotels in South Australia.I continued on to be successful in the business world. 
 
I considered that the set backs I had so far experienced, were merely fuel for my fire. I may have been ‘down and out’, but I was alive and healthy, and I knew that life had something more in store for me. I had survived cancer. I had been thrown in the deep end of an unscrupulous business world and survived. I considered these merely like training sessions at football; all mere preparation for the big game. I knew I was well prepared for whatever was about to unfold. I had learned from many a mistake and was all fired up.
 
I remembered the words of John Bertrand, the Skipper of Australia II after winning the America’s Cup:
“I believe you cannot win if you think you have an outside chance. You must, sometimes  after years of refinement and development and belief in yourself, and your crew. Believe that you are No. 1.”
 
I lived and breathed this statement. I had the strength of my own convictions and I knew God had his reasons. He surely was guiding me towards my quest for success and for the restoration of my most inner beliefs.

Both my Mother and my Father later died of Cancer. The bloody Cancer had ravaged my Family. My mother  Patricia Margaret WADE died of Cancer of the Pancreas and my father John Lionel Wade died  of Brain  and Lung Cancer. I could not save their lives. I remember the both of them praying  to God when I had cancer that I be spared and they take the Cancer from my body. I have lived with that guilt all my life.

Little did I know that in 2004 I was to fight Cancer again. This time the rare and dreaded Carcinoid Cancer.