When I was sixteen, my Grandfather died of cancer to the lungs, liver, and kidneys. On Friday I found out my mom has skin cancer and is undergoing treatment. That night, I realized I have a lump on my right testicle... non painful.

According to what I've been able to find out, there are five things which can cause a non-painful lump.

1) Varicocele - some kind of inflamation of the veins, which is supposed to feel like a bag of worms... which does not fit the description of what I have.

2)Hyrdococele - basically a bag of water that ends up in the scrotum; usually in infants... I'm not an infant and this is attached to the testicle itself, not floating around in the scrotum

3) Hernia - I haven't had one of those.

Hydrococele

... those are what I've ruled out. There are apparently only two other things that cause a non painful lump. One is a spermatocele, the other is a cancerous tumor. The free clinic doesn't open again until monday morning. I will be there when it opens, classes be damned.

A spermatocele generally fits the descriptiion, its supposed to basically be like a bag of dead sperm attached to one end of the testicle. What doesn't seem to fit though is that it feels hard, kind of like a mini choclate chip. One of the diagnostic tools is apparently to shine a flashlight through to see if it transilluminates or is opaque... my little key chain flashlight must not be bright enough though because while it could shine through the scrotum, it couldn't through the testicle.

Flip a coin: heads you live, tails you die... thats a quote from some movie, but it seems to have some real relevance here. If this is a spermatocele, then I'm going to be just fine, and won't need any kind of treatment unless it grows to the point of being severely uncomfortable. If its cancer.... my insurance expires when I graduate in December. If I drop a class, I'll keep the insurance until my next birthday... giving me an extra three and a half months. If I'm not cured by then, I'm going to die.

Thats something real rough to come face to face with... for the past year I've been going to classes... making big plans for grad school and a stunning carreer taking blighted cities and reinvigorating them through progressive policies... making big plans to leave this place I'm at, move to another state to be with the man I love so much... all of that can disappear tomorrow with just three words "Its a tumor."

I spent most of this past day sleeping... now I'm probably going to be up all night... 30 hours and twenty minutes from now as I type this, I'm going to walk into the clinic. An hour, maybe two later I'm going to know rather I'm going to spend the rest of my life fulfilling all those big dreams, or living in a hospital until my insurance expires.

Its... agonizing...

I have papers to do... is there any point... was there ever? My decisions have always been based on the assumption that I'm going to live to be an old man... so I've spent the past four years going to college instead of out living. I haven't drowned my liver in parties, I've never smoked... cigarettes or weed... I've never done any drugs for that matter. All to stay healthy...

I've been exercising a lot... one of my goals was to have six pack abs at least long enough to take a picture of... so when I grew old I'd be able to look back and remember....

I'm not ready to die... I want to live...