'Survivor' Wade found out he had testicular cancer due to accident

Sydney, Feb 25(ANI): Australian wicket keeper Matthew Wade had accidentally found out that he had a tumour in his testicles after getting belted in the groin during a game of state football during his teens.

Wade was 16 when he was away for a school camp, where he realized something wasn't right and he went in for a check up.

"I went in and got it checked and the doctor basically said if I hadn't been hit in the testicle, maybe I would never have known the tumour was there, so I was pretty lucky I got hit in the nuts and got it checked," The Sydney Morning Herald quoted Wade, as saying.

Wade said it was a strange feeling for him and at first he didn't realize the grimness of the problem.

"It was just a surreal sort of thing. It didn't hit home until I sat there and they told me basically that I was going to go through chemotherapy and lose my hair and all that sort of stuff," Wade added.

" As a young bloke at 16, I think that's when it hit home that this was pretty serious. Before that I didn't really know, I just thought I'd have an operation and it would be taken care of. Then, sitting down and talking about it, I realized how serious it was, and I was pretty lucky to get through it," he said.

Wade said that at the point when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, it was a pivotal time for him, as he had to decide between cricket and football as a professional sport.

"When I got diagnosed with testicular cancer, that was at a pretty crucial time for my footy. I kept playing but it wasn't probably as intense as what it could have been. I floated through that period and started the apprenticeship because I thought professional sport was out of the question.," he said. (ANI)