Former England and Lions prop Alex Corbisiero joined Off The Ball for Wednesday Night Rugby as he looked back on his career and spoke about his cancer diagnosis.
Corbisiero had been, prior to the diagnosis gently retiring from the professional rugby game forging a media career in the United States.
"Leaving rugby was never easy," said the former prop, "but after all the injuries I had, maybe the love of the game had worn off a little and the role at NBC had given me a chance to transition into a life after rugby."
Corbisiero says he wasn't ready to process the thought that he could have cancer when he got his diagnosis.
"In hindsight, I was in denial," admitted the former Lion. "One testicle was considerably larger than the other one, harder but no lump. If I had known what I know now and gone in, I probably would have had my fate sealed.
"I just felt it was the right thing to do, it had been a bit sore, bit large. I was like 'Oh let me go get it checked.'
"I had jujitsu with my brother booked for after, he was in the car outside waiting. We didn't really plan on it being that [cancer]. We just thought we had better get it ticked off, find out it wasn't something bad and everything was fine."
'You've got cancer'
As soon as Corbisiero entered the doctors' surgery, it was clear things were not fine.
"Immediately the doctor felt it and before he did any scans or anything he said 'what do you think it is' and I said I was worried it was testicular cancer," recalled the ex-England prop.
"He said 'I'm telling you now you've got it, we can do all the tests and scans, but just by feeling it, I can tell you have it.'
"It sank in immediately. The hardest part is there was so much I didn't know about it all I wanted to do was make sure I survived it.
"All I knew was the word cancer and all of its connotations that I had seen. Luckily, the type I had, that it hadn't spread yet, so we caught it without leaving my testicles to get to the lymph nodes put me in a very good category.
"One, for survival but two, for the treatment opportunities that I had, as dire as they can be on the chemotherapy route.
"After 24 hours on the CT scan, I found out it hadn't spread, once I had gotten those results I was pretty calm.
"That was the nerviest part when you are waiting and it's in your testicles and it could be all the way up to your lungs and your brain.
"They did tell me the survival rate is so high that regardless of where it spreads, you should be okay, just you would need a lot of chemo."
Vulnerability
The former Northampton player had a further scare when he returned to England for treatment.
"What was harder was when we got back to England," remembered Corbisiero. "They looked at my CT scan and they had a few questions about one of my lymph nodes, which was sent to the specialists.
"So there was a nervy couple of days until that was 100 percent signed off. Then I was at ease knowing the certainty of the course of action.
"The hardest part of the situation is the unknowns and controlling them. finding ways to let your mind be at peace with controlling things you can't control.
"Worrying about the diagnosis was the hardest of that, once you actually know what you have it's just the anticipation of the treatment.
"It seemed much more like rugby then, like when 'I'd done this to my knee, I need this surgery, rehab and I'll be back.' It felt more like that pathway once all of that happened.
"It's life-changing, it's a shock but not to panic like 'oh, I'm going to die', it's just the first time I'd felt that vulnerability in my life.
"In my whole life, I'd never had any health complications apart from the surgeries from rugby, none of them were ever life-threatening or changing.
"So it was the first time, age 31, I faced that encounter of potential death and worrying about things you can't fight through or rely on your strength to get you through. That was the mental challenge of this whole thing.
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