A BRAVE Worcestershire cricketer has revealed his battle against testicular cancer and urged men across the city to get themselves checked.
Tom Fell underwent successful surgery to remove a tumour from his left testicle and has now been given the green light to resume playing cricket this winter.
The 22-year-old wants promote awareness of the cancer and admitted he should have gone for a check-up sooner after he noticed a change in the condition of his left testicle
“I was quite lucky. I was fairly stupid in the fact I didn’t get it checked straight away. When they did analyse the tumour, it was fairly big at the stage they operated,” he said.
“Because I felt no different, that is why I didn’t bother to get it checked sooner than I did.”
It was at the tail-end of September that Fell decided to take action after initially seeing the club doctor at New Road.
He said: “Eventually at the end of the season, I got it looked at, and had a little scan on it, and saw the specialist at the hospital in Worcester and they discovered pretty quickly that it was a tumour. That was on October 5 and I was operated on 10 days later .”
Now after a period of recuperation Fell resumed training at New Road before he heads out to Australia on December 7 to play grade cricket in Perth for three months.
Fell opted not to undergo chemotherapy and instead will have regular check-ups – including when Down Under – after being told he has a 65 per cent chance of remaining all clear.
“It is such an easy thing to do, it takes 10 minutes with the doctor. I think partly the reason people don’t get it checked is because it is quite a sensitive area and people may feel embarrassed and don’t want to go through it,” he added.
“I think if I had left it any longer and had gone to Australia to play cricket this winter without being checked, who knows how bad it could have been.
“Naturally it came as a bit of a shock. But I knew straight away that testicular cancer is something that is quite common in people my age and it is very curable. I think the cure rate is 97-98 per cent,” he added.
Fell was told earlier this month the cancer hadn’t spread and faces one further check up before jetting off Down Under.
“A month ago, I didn’t know what was going to happen. To know I’m able to get on with my life again and get out to Australia as originally planned is a really good feeling.
The talented batsman said he was overwhelmed with the messages of support from his team-mates, coaching and medical staff.
“Mitch (skipper Daryl Mitchell) for his benefit year has named ‘Oddballs’ as his charity which works with testicular cancer and the awareness of that,” he added.
Visit www.myoddballs.com for more information.
