A Dubai boy who was diagnosed with stage 4 testicular cancer when he was 16 has spoken of his ordeal and shared a story of hope.
Daanish Baig, now 17, is a cancer survivor and has been on remission for the past six months. He says he is on a mission to raise awareness on this silent cancer that can go unnoticed in many young boys.
Read the full story: https://gulfnews.com/uae/17-year-old-dubai-boy-on-a-mission-after-beating-testicular-cancer-1.94374302
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#Dubai #UAEnews #cancersurvivor
Daanish Baig, now 17, is a cancer survivor and has been on remission for the past six months. He says he is on a mission to raise awareness on this silent cancer that can go unnoticed in many young boys.
Read the full story: https://gulfnews.com/uae/17-year-old-dubai-boy-on-a-mission-after-beating-testicular-cancer-1.94374302
Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
#Dubai #UAEnews #cancersurvivor
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NewsTranscript
00:00Basically, no one really knows what testicular cancer is or no one really talks about it
00:04because of the taboo associated with it, because of the region that it's associated with.
00:11But we should talk about it because no one should have to go through the suffering that
00:15I went through.
00:19I was diagnosed last year with testicular cancer in January when I was 16.
00:24It all happened really quickly, honestly.
00:27It happened in a span of three days.
00:29I had a slight pain in the scrotal area and I told my dad about it and we were going to
00:36the hospital and on the way to the hospital, the pain just stopped.
00:39I told my dad to turn back but he's like, no, we should go and we should get it checked.
00:43And we got it checked.
00:44We did a couple of ultrasounds and they diagnosed it as stage four testicular cancer.
00:51We got our treatment done in India.
00:53I had four cycles of chemotherapy, very intensive.
00:57And here I am, six months later, free of cancer.
01:00Last month, actually, we had celebrated the sixth month from when I had been declared
01:06in remission.
01:07Today, life is back to normal.
01:08I've made a lot of new friends.
01:10I'm studying what I've wanted to study all my life.
01:16I've also gotten in contact with the Al Jalila Foundation so that we can open up a cancer
01:23awareness group for teenagers and we can sort of talk to each other and keep ourselves company.
01:31What I really wanted to talk about today was awareness of self-checks in children because
01:37we didn't know that I was prone to getting this cancer at all.
01:41So apparently for the testicular cancer, if you have hypospadiasis at birth and undescended
01:47testicle, your rate or your chances of getting testicular cancer shoot up very high.
01:54So we were never told that.
01:56Basically, no one really knows what testicular cancer is or no one really talks about it
02:01because of the taboo associated with it, because of the region that it's associated with.
02:07But we should talk about it because no one should have to go through the suffering that
02:11I went through.
02:13Having to go through four cycles of chemotherapy as a 16-year-old is not something you really
02:18want to go through.
02:19According to John Hopkins Medical University, men or boys aged from 15 to 19, testicular
02:28cancer is the second highest malignancy that affects these men or boys.
02:35It's a very silent form of cancer.
02:38The symptoms are very similar to very aggressive puberty.
02:44So for me, I had weight gain because I was eating a lot, horrible mood swings.
02:52I would probably be happy one second and the next second I'm just snapping at my mother
02:58for something she probably didn't even do.
03:00Tiredness, very tired.
03:02I used to sleep forever and my mother used to literally have to kick me out of bed every
03:08morning because I just couldn't wake up.
03:10We used to go to the doctor for these symptoms and he used to say it's just nothing, it's
03:13just puberty.
03:14But it was actually just cancer.
03:17The actual self-check for this cancer is so simple.
03:20It's like as simple as the self-check for breast cancer.
03:23Basically, in a hot shower, it has to be hot so that the testicle is descended.
03:29You should be feeling the testicle for any abnormality.
03:33So what the testicle is supposed to feel like is very smooth, round, no bumps, ridges, anything.
03:40It should be smoother than your skin.
03:43If there is any hard points or any hard bumps on the testicle, you need to get that checked
03:52with a urologist.
03:53You can ask them for an ultrasound and that will determine whether it's cancer or not
03:59really cancer.
04:00The good news for testicular cancer is it is one of the most treatable forms of cancer.
04:0585% of testicular cancer patients are completely cancer-free.
04:11They end up being completely cancer-free.
04:14And the mortality rate for testicular cancer is only, it's like less than 1%.
04:19So it's not really a dangerous form of cancer, but it's very silent and it can progress very fast.
04:25I got fourth stage cancer and I'm perfectly fine.
04:28Fourth stage does not mean death.
04:32Fourth stage just indicates the progress of the cancer and where it has spread.
04:36So fourth stage for me was, it had spread to the lungs and to other lymph nodes area.
04:42So like the lymph nodes are connected to all parts of the body.
04:45So that's how cancer actually spreads, through the lymph nodes.
04:49It had spread to my lungs and that's what made it fourth stage.
04:54But with fourth stage, I am perfectly fine today.
04:56I am cancer-free, 100% cancer-free.
04:58So it doesn't really mean death, it's just the progress of the cancer.
05:03My perspective of life was very childish before cancer, honestly.
05:09I never really understood what it was like to go through that sort of pain.
05:16I was just like, you know, it's just cancer, it's just another disease.
05:20But honestly, after going through it, you realize that you only have this one life and
05:27you need to get as much done as you can.
05:31You need to have all the fun that you want, all the work done.
05:35But it's basically, I understood that the balance between work and play is very essential
05:43to being successful.