Kicking cancer

Early-stage cancer can be more easily treated than in the later stages. That is why doctors recommend regular cancer screening for people at risk or who suspect that they may have it.

A 62-year-old man in Virginia, USA, underwent a mammogram in 2022 after a trip to Las Vegas. The breast checkup proved timely for retired accountant and entrepreneur Robert Pfleghardt as a lump was detected and a subsequent test confirmed it was cancerous, People reported.

Pfleghardt underwent a lumpectomy or partial mastectomy, removing the cancer and the affected lymph nodes.

He said he would not have taken the test if not for the pain that lingered in his right nipple after his friend pinched it hard when they met in Las Vegas in 2021.

“Me and my friends still laugh about how we found out I had cancer,” he told People. “My friend who pinched me saved my life. I wouldn’t have found the lump otherwise and it would have spread.”

Meanwhile, Ben Lidgey of Wales, United Kingdom, finally consulted a doctor for the pain in his testicle that had started a week before, the BBC reported.

As in Pfleghardt’s case, the medical checkup was timely as it discovered he had testicular cancer.

Signs and symptoms of testicular cancer are a lump or swelling in the testicles, the testicles getting bigger, an ache or pain in the testicles or scrotum, and feeling them to be heavy, firm or hard, according to the BBC.

After the diagnosis, doctors applied the proper treatment, saving his life.

If Pfleghardt’s friend helped discover his cancer in time, Lidgey believes his four-year-old son helped save his life.

Lidgey recalled that he was playing with his son in the garden when the boy accidentally kicked him in the groin.

He remembers his testicle feeling like a cricket ball, but he was reluctant to see a doctor, thinking the problem would go away.