In summer 2020, Ronal Salvador, then 16 and a high school junior, noticed a lump on one of his testicles. “I didn’t think much of it,” Salvador, now 21 of New Orleans, tells TODAY.com.
“It was just getting bigger.” As it grew, he worried that the mass was a sign something was seriously wrong. In the fall, he asked his mom about it, and she examined it.
Concerned, she took Salvador to a hospital, and he eventually learned that he had stage 1 testicular cancer. He’s sharing his story so other young people with cancer feel less alone. “Maybe someone will relate to it,” Salvador says.
“Maybe somebody will find hope in my story.” Over the summer of 2020, Salvador noticed the bump but thought his body had just changed. “I thought it was normal,” he says.
Then it began growing, and he became worried. In October, he mentioned it to his mom, who believed they should visit the hospital. “They did some scans.
They did some checks,” Salvador recalls. “They said, ‘Yes, this is cancerous.’” The doctors recommended removing both testicles, but Salvador’s mother balked at this.
She hoped to someday have grandchildren and thought that this plan was too aggressive for her teen son. The two visited a doctor at Children’s Hospital of New Orleans for a second opinion. Doctors there shared some welcome news.
“They were like, ‘OK, we’re going to do the best to save one (testicle),’” Salvador recalls. “But the other one definitely has to come out.�.
