Name: Dylan Hesse

Age: 30
Diagnosis: Testicular Cancer

Years of Survivorship: 5 years
Location: Denver, CO

Follow Dylan on Instagram.

Why Share your story?

“I believe it's incredibly important to share your story. It’s for others who may go through a similar experience and have questions about what they may face.

I was unfortunately fortunate to have a handful of close family members who had faced cancer before me, who were there to give me advice or just listen. Dealing with cancer involves a lot more than just your medical treatment plan. It helped me to know what to expect when spending a few days in the hospital or during a chemo session. I hope to be able to share something that helps someone else during their journey.”

How has running or staying physically active affected your journey? 

“Honestly, it didn’t make sense to me. I spent weeks preparing for my surgery, taking meticulous notes on everything that I wasn’t going to be allowed to do. The list went on and on… Can’t lift anything heavier than 3 pounds for months. Can’t eat anything with fat. Can’t eat blueberries or strawberries. And definitely don’t eat any popcorn, or risk having it stuck in your intestinal folds.

I knew it was going to be months before I was able to run again, but I didn’t realize how quickly I was expected to begin moving. A few hours after my surgery, I was out of the recovery room and up to my hospital room before the doctor let me know it was time to go for a walk. I didn’t understand. I had an incision from my pubic bone to my xiphoid process, all held together by nearly 100 staples. It didn’t matter, all I wanted to do was hit the button of my pain med dispenser and try to sleep. I had to walk a lap around the hospital floor before I was given that luxury.

The doctors made it clear spending the next 6 days in bed was not an option. One lap before bed that night. Another one or two in the morning, another after lunch and a few more before bed the next day. For as many rules I had before surgery, I missed the memo that I was going to be walking laps around the unit, building up my strength as best I could before I was allowed to go home. Just a few days later I was required to walk a mile before I could leave. It wasn’t what I wanted to be doing, but the physicians obviously knew what was best for me. Just a little bit of ‘exercise’ was a must even though it wasn’t always the exercise I wanted.

For me, it didn’t matter how much I could walk, it was the absence of running that made my cancer journey more difficult. It would be another 3 months before I was even able to run a step with the strict restrictions in place. Running had been a staple in my life since the day in 7th grade that I walked off the track in frustration after failing to meet a goal. Whether it was annual Father-Son trips to the Army 10 Miler in DC, indoor and outdoor track in high school, or trail and ultra running during college and post-grad. If I was exercising, it was a safe bet I was running.

The 3 month forced hiatus made me appreciate my relationship with running even more. Running was an outlet that provided measurable personal growth and when I was finally able to run again, something that would take my mind off cancer. Running allowed me to see myself improving week after week, month after month, becoming stronger and pushing cancer further into the rearview mirror.”

What advice do you have for people on staying fit throughout their recovery?

“Reset expectations or try something different! Surgeries are tough. Chemo might kick your ass. You’re not going to finish treatment and be back to your normal self in just a few days or week, and that’s okay.”

What are some of your proudest accomplishments?

“It’s rare if my friends or family hear me talking about my work accomplishments, or the accomplishments of my team. I’ve spent a lot of time actively ensuring my work doesn’t take over my life when I could easily let it. Since COVID began I’ve been working in medical device manufacturing, first as a quality engineer and more recently as a manufacturing engineering manager. My team has been responsible for manufacturing blood separation equipment and other medical equipment. But over the last few months I’ve taken a lot of time to reflect on what I do and the impact it has. My attitude has changed a lot since I’ve started giving tours and seen the reactions from everyone on the tours. It has really helped me recognize the importance of what we do. When you see the same things day in and day out, you forget how impactful the devices you make are. One specific new product that we launched last year and began manufacturing must be my proudest accomplishment, mostly due to the treatment potential it provides. The specific device is used to expand and harvest cells, which includes CAR-T cells that are used in different cancer therapies. It makes me incredibly proud to be a cancer survivor and lead a team which is responsible for manufacturing devices that are used in treating cancer.”

How has Gabe's story impacted you or changed the way you view life as a cancer patient/survivor?

“Being diagnosed with cancer as a 23-year-old is weird. It’s honestly hard to relate to others your age. They might have a family member who had cancer, but it’s usually a child or parent or grandparent. Rarely does someone share a story of a young adult who experienced cancer. From the first time I heard Gabe’s story, it immediately resonated with me. While we were very different, she was a professional runner and I was a recently graduated engineer, it was fascinating to hear someone in their late 20s or early 30s discuss their diagnosis so openly. Her story reminded me that it’s okay to be uncertain with your future, but you must continue to work towards your goals through that uncertainty. For the next three years before her untimely passing, I read just about every article I could on her journey while sharing them with both my dad and my partner. As I was in and out of treatment during the summer of 2018, her story was one that I always went back to for inspiration, and honestly a distraction from what I was dealing with. ‘Relentlessly optimistic’ is not how you’d hear my friends or family ever describe me, but following Gabe’s story without a doubt provided me hope when I needed it most.”

What does being #BraveLikeDYLAN mean to you?

“Five years into survivorship, my relationship with cancer continues to evolve. It’s just within the last year that I’ve gotten past thinking about it nearly every day. In 2018, #BraveLikeDylan might have looked like facing my cancer head on, as though it’s just another problem for my engineer brain to solve. For many days, I was able to dissociate with the emotions and it was just a matter of checking items off a list.

RPLND Surgery, check. Get out of the hospital, check. Spend the summer sitting on the beach recovering, check. The lymph nodes removed were larger than the doctors would have liked, so time to start chemo. Chemo Round 1, check. Chemo Round 2, check. These are just things I needed to do, there wasn’t anything else to think about.

Today #BraveLikeDylan takes on a different meaning. Today it’s about being brave enough to listen and empathize with others about what they are facing. I’d love to never have to think about my experience with 6 hour bouts of hiccups from chemo, or being unable to tie my shoes from pure exhaustion, but recognizing that I am able to listen to others as they face an uncertain time, and truly relate to what they are facing is something I will always do no matter how hard it may to be for me to relive. As I said before, I was unfortunately fortunate to have many close family members who had cancer journeys before mine, and their willingness to listen was without a doubt the most impactful thing they provided.”

Tell us about something you are looking forward to?

“The New York City Marathon on Sunday November 5th, 2023. It’s an event I’ve had my eye on for years. I wanted to run in 2021, it would have marked 5 years to the day that I had my first surgery, but COVID had other plans. Training for the race this year has also given me a lot to reflect on and recognize how thankful I am for my support system. The race is going to be incredibly emotional for me when we start to run down 1st avenue right past Memorial Sloan Kettering. It’s an event that I couldn’t be more excited about, and being able to raise money for the Brave Like Gabe Foundation was the cherry on top.”

“Today, #BraveLikeDylan takes on a different meaning. Today it’s about being brave enough to listen and empathize with others about what they are facing.”

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