PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) – At the age of 33, CJ Ashley felt invincible. He had recently welcomed a baby girl Emma with his wife, and he didn’t have any concerns about his health.
“We had just had a kid, Emma. She was six months at the time,” he said. “I was definitely the person who never went to the doctor. If I needed something, I went to urgent care, but really, I never got physicals, I never did any of that.”
Then, Ashley sat on his couch one day and realized something didn’t appear right to him.
“Yeah, it was odd. It was hard. That’s the best way I can describe it,” Ashley said.
At his wife’s urging, he decided to call a doctor. It was testicular cancer.
“Testicular cancer is in young men. It is the most common in men less than age 40, testicular cancer, and they present with a palpable testicular mass,” said Dr. Mark Fleming, oncologist at Virginia Oncology Associates.
Fleming specializes in genital urinary cancers including, testicular and prostate.
Prostate cancer is most common in men over the age of 50. It is also the most common type of cancer diagnosed in men. It’s estimated that nearly 300,000 people have been diagnosed in 2024.
Testicular cancer is rarer. It’s estimated that fewer than 10,000 cases have been diagnosed this year.
Both prostate and testicular cancers have high cure rates Fleming said, especially when found early.
‘You should be doing self-exams and, you know, once a month at least for the testicular cancer and anything that is abnormal, then you need to go see a doctor.”
With early prostate cancer, there are no symptoms. It’s recommended to get screened.
The PSA is a blood test that measures prostate-specific antigen. Men should have a PSA test and a digital prostate exam done once a year. Fleming recommends black men, who are at higher risk, start screening between the ages of 40-45, while white men can begin at around age 50.
“What you don’t want to do is have pain be your onset of symptoms,” Fleming said.
Ashley considered chemotherapy the most painful aspect of his cancer journey.
It wiped out his white cells and sent him to the hospital with a virus his body couldn’t fight. He remained there for days to receive lifesaving treatment. It was in this particular moment he realized no one is actually invincible.
“Now when something happens, I kind of go to the extreme and think that ‘hey, this is this is,’ you know, the cancer coming back or something like that,” Ashley said.
Anxiety is expected, but fortunately Ashley caught and treated his cancer early. He is now cancer free and doing much better.
He shared his story in hopes that it will urge young men to prioritize their health and perform monthly self-exams to avoid prostate and testicular cancer.