January Challenge - Day 16: On a more serious note...

I want to take a bit of a break from blogging about my non-drinking ways and talk about something a bit more serious and also has a big health impact, especially for young men.

A couple of months back, Movember took Canada by storm. Men in Canada sprouted moustaches to raise awareness and money for Prostate Cancer (including myself - my coworkers have begged me never to do Movember again). This month, the Canadian Testicular Cancer Association is trying to turn January into Manuary, a campaign to create awareness for testicular cancer.

They even have an article in this month's MacLean's magazine that highlights the organization and how they plan on raising money and awareness during Manuary (see the article to the right).

Testicular cancer is the most common form of cancer in men between the ages of 15 and 29. This is not an old person's disease like Prostate Cancer, young men are mostly affected by this easily treatable cancer (a 97% success rate in curing if detected early).

Most men never think of testicular cancer because at this age, because they rarely go to the doctors - we feel it's a sign of weakness and a threat to our manhoods (I can totally attest to this). We also never think it will happen to us - we think we're invincible at this age.

I personally have not known anyone around me suffer from testicular cancer, but I've seen other cancers ravage and ultimately take the lives of many people that I care about. This is why it's so important to make people aware of the easy steps they can take on a regular basis to prevent cancers like this from taking your life.

Let's be honest, men have no problem with playing with themselves. If they only took the time to check themselves for testicular cancer with the same dedication, the likelihood this cancer will take a life will decrease significantly.

I watch a great medical series from the UK on YouTube (it's called Embarrassing Bodies, it used to be called Embarrassing Illnesses) and they have a great video on how you can check your balls. Caution, there is nudity, and you'll likely giggle. But if there's anything you can take away from this video, it is the knowledge of understanding your body and checking for the warning signs so that testicular cancer won't take your life. Here is the clip below.

Embarrassing Bodies - How to check your testicles (*WARNING: This clip does contain scenes of nudity. Giggles and shocked faces will occur.)