Team Canada Beach Volleyball player turned Movember ambassador shares his story

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Gentlemen, get to know your balls!  A member of the Team Canada Beach Volleyball team is sharing that advice this Movember.

Grant O’Gorman survived testicular cancer thanks to early detection. “Yeah, if you can check yourself every month in the shower, check for lumps, check for change in size, check for pain, and get to know your balls, then you can detect signs very early,” he recommends.

The 27-year-old, originally from Scarborough, Ontario but who now calls Vancouver home, first discovered something was wrong back in July of last year.

“I was representing Canada at the World Championships in Hamburg, Germany and I noticed my nipple was getting a little bit bigger. A couple of weeks later, it kept getting bigger. So, I squeezed it and noticed some liquid was coming out.”

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Concerned, he went to the doctor upon his return to Canada.

“They did an ultrasound of my nipple, they didn’t find anything, and then a couple of months passed, I saw another doctor who recommended I get an ultrasound on my testicles,” he recalls. “And then, we got the results from that and we found out that there were three nodules and three weeks after that I was getting surgery and got my right [testicle] removed.”

O’Gorman admits it was an anxious few weeks. “I was not sure how bad it was, I wasn’t sure if [the cancer] had spread or not, but when I figured that all out, I was happy I was alive and happy to embrace the challenge of coming back from this.”

All told, his cancer battle was a relatively brief one. “Yeah, it started from, yeah, July last year and the surgery was May of this year. So, it took a while to figure it out, but the surgery was quick and I’m happy about that.”

While O’Gorman was back in fighting shape within a couple of months, he recommends others take it slow after surgery.

“I pushed my body maybe a little too quick, but I was fortunate nothing bad happened,” he admits. “You are at risk of hernia after the surgery, so you need to be aware of that.”

“Take it slow, respect your body. Surgery is something drastic happening to your body. Respect it.”

Now, he takes nothing for granted. “I actually had a blood test on my birthday a couple of days ago. I am getting CT scans every six months now and blood tests every three months.”

Today, O’Gorman is a proud Movember ambassador and is fundraising for the very first time this year. He’s not just a survivor, but has also lost a loved one to the disease. His father died of skin cancer at age 50.

You can find out more about O’Gorman’s cancer battle in a series of videos he has posted to YouTube. To find out more about Movember, head to the campaign home page.