Dan's story: The ultrasound scan

The ultrasound can seem worrying as it's often the first time you leave the safety of the doctor's surgery and the standard "feel up" that comes with that, and move onto something a bit more invasive and it feels more serious.

It's nothing to worry about though, just like any other examination you drop your trousers and it's just a bit colder due to the contact gel! The friendly technician will talk you through what he/she is doing at all times so there's no shocks, but essentially he puts the ultrasound dongle on each ball in turn and tells you if they look dodgy (you can see the screen and it looks pretty cool). In my case he told me straight away that it didn't look too good for one of my chaps which in a way was nice as there was no more waiting to see if there was something wrong.

The ultrasound can't tell you if you have cancer or not, just if there's something wrong inside but I came out of the ultrasound knowing that I was going to have an orchidectomy (ball removal) and it was nice to be able to have a plan and a clear route forward. Not knowing what was going on was for me the worst thing at the time.