A personal experience with testicular cancer was behind Ben Crowder's leadership to an effort by Gibson Shipbrokers to raise awareness for men's health in a Movember campaign.
The 33-year-old, who works for the brokerage’s aframax and fuel oil desks in London, said he found a tumour on his “left nut” that turned out to be cancerous a month ago.
“I have struggled to tell people because it’s a weird thing to bring up in conversation,” Crowder said. “However, I feel it is important to share my experience and encourage friends, husbands and sons to check their goolies.”
The Movember Foundation encourages men to grow their facial hair every November and post their photos via an online platform to raise funds. The money is used to raise awareness for men’s health, with a particular focus on prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health and suicide prevention.
Crowder had surgery recently that left him “han solo”, he said.
“However, I am enjoying the new lighter, sleeker look,” he said. “I am absolutely fine, and luckily I have caught this early by acting quickly. Despite this being a rare cancer it is very curable if caught in its infancy.”
“The bad news is I have an aggressive type of ‘TC’ [testicular cancer], so the next step is to seek a private oncologist and either face five years of surveillance or chemotherapy.”
Along with 17 of his colleagues, Crowder has launched a campaign on the Movember platform at https://moteam.co/hell-of-a-bush in a bid to help reduce the mortality from testicular cancer.
“Have a feel of your vegetables and make sure you don’t have anything growing where it shouldn’t be,” said Crowder. “Turns out that white, tall, 20- to 40-year-old men with small willies tend to be the unlucky ones!”
“Movember is working to halve the number of deaths from testicular cancer by 2030, and I want to help them get there. Help me stop men dying too young.”
