Not a light or funny post, and yet it's about balls.

My friend Jeremy, age 30, happened to go to a medical talk last week. The speaker urged everyone in attendance to do regular self-checks of the testicles most dear to them. So Jeremy went home, and what the hell, checked. He found a lump. Went to the doctor the next day, it was a malignant and fast-growing tumor. He had surgery to remove the cancerous testicle two days later. Doing the self-check saved his life. (Going to the talk saved his life... how many talks can you say that about?)

I spoke to him today, and he asked that I spread the word to everyone I could, so here goes. I have never given testicular cancer much thought, and neither had he. He'd never routinely done self-checks before.

Apparently ages 25-35 (plus a few years on either end) are the prime years for it. The treatment is very successful if you catch it early. But the tumors are incredibly, incredibly aggressive. The doctor thinks if Jeremy had found his tumor only a couple of weeks later, it would have already spread -- but the doctor also told him the tumor probably only started within the last month.

So check. Every 2 weeks.