Jeremy Fowler spent his nineteenth birthday in a hospital bed recovering from emergency surgery to remove one of his testicles.
The day before he had gone to the hospital because the pain he’d been feeling in his testicle became unbearable.
The doctor examining Fowler was startled by the inflammation and asked for a second opinion from another expert.
The diagnosis was surgery as soon as possible.
The tumour was cancerous.
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Fowler is involved in the St. Thomas University community. He ran the Terry Fox Run Sunday and has taken part in the annual Relay for Life. He’s in his fifth year studying English and cultural studies at STU where he is also the residence coordinator in Harrington Hall.
“It was the initial shock of it,” Fowler said of learning of his disease. “When you’re nineteen and just got diagnosed you’d think, you know, maybe in forty years when I’m an actual adult, but not a young person.”
That first surgery was the beginning of a journey that would push Jeremy to his limits both physically and mentally.
Though the initial source of the cancerous cells had been removed, there was still the possibility that the disease had spread.
Fowler underwent a three-month-long schedule of chemotherapy to combat the disease.
It was an extremely draining and debilitating treatment and Fowler did his best to keep his head up.
Throughout the treatment, Fowler would go back and forth between Saint John, where he was treated, and Fredericton, attending classes and performing his duties as president of the Chatham Hall house committee as best he could.
Fowler attributes his ability to remain positive and upbeat during treatment to his decision to remain enrolled at STU.
“If I had been stuck in a hospital bed or at home during my treatment, I probably would have lost my mind.”
Adding to the stress of regular hospital visits, Fowler also had to undergo a second surgery after doctors found potentially dangerous growths behind his stomach and on his lungs. The growths were later found to be benign.
Finally, in February 2009, Jeremy was given a clean bill of health. However, there were still issues that needed to be faced long after the treatments were over.
“When I was sick, it was more a physical ordeal. Afterward came the mental,” he explained.
The road to beating cancer had been extremely difficult, but its aftermath held many new challenges as well.
“I don’t want to say I was in shock for the three months of my treatment, but you don’t really think about it. It’s like a car accident. You don’t reflect on it as it’s happening.”
It was that shock, that brush with mortality, which left him shaken afterwards.
But, with the help of loved ones, visits to a councillor, and many long hours of reflection, Fowler was able to come to terms with the mental wreckage that had been left behind.
Fowler today is an active member of the St. Thomas community and inspires many with his story of courage and determination.
In many ways, the scars from that year and its battles are still fresh, but he continues his course to recovery one step at a time.
“It’s hard to come to terms with what happened, but at the risk of sounding like that movie Sleepless in Seattle, ‘Every day gets better.’”
