SUPERCAR DRIVERS ARE conditioned to treat high-risk situations like it’s just another day in the office. A small knock here or a bit of a strain there are little more than occupational hazards in a sport where cars reach speeds over 300km/h and split-second decisions can be the difference between making a turn smoothly or spinning into a wall. But for Thomas Randle, one moment of pain in the cockpit would become the catalyst for something far more serious.
“It’s quite unique, I guess,” Randle says, recalling the moment he first realised something might not be right. “In our race cars, we have a six-point harness and a belt that comes up between your crotch. Sometimes what happens is that last belt gets caught around your gonads. It can be pretty painful.”
That pain struck during a race in November of 2019. At first, it seemed like just another uncomfortable byproduct of racing, but weeks passed and the sensation lingered. “By Christmas, the pain still hadn’t gone away. I realised that something mustn’t be right. It was like that feeling of being kicked in the nuts, but it just wouldn’t go away.”
It’s the kind of symptom many young men might brush off, but Randle made a decision that might’ve saved his life. “I went and saw a GP and it all happened very quickly from there. They told me I should go get an ultrasound, and later that day, they told me ‘we think you’ve got testicular cancer’.”
For many men in their early twenties, cancer might feel like a distant threat, or something that happens later in life, if at all. Randle was no different. “I didn't even really know anything about testicular cancer,” he admits. “When you go through school, you get taught a bit about that sort of thing, but it’s all just in the back of your mind. You don’t think it’ll happen to you.”
In reality, testicular cancer is the most common form of cancer among men aged 15-39. The shock of the diagnosis was compounded by Randle’s lack of understanding. “My perception at the time was that if you get cancer, you’ll probably die. So when I got the news, I thought the worst,” he says. “I was wondering how long I had left to live.”
What he didn’t realise then was that while testicular cancer is the most common cancer in young men, it is also one of the most treatable when caught early.
What followed was, in Randle’s words, “a whirlwind.” He had surgery, with doctors removing the affected testicle. Initially, chemotherapy was on the table, but a second opinion shifted the timeline. “The original plan was to do chemotherapy straight away. But we got a second opinion and delayed it because they weren’t sure that chemo would be necessary.” Months later, further scans showed his lymph nodes weren’t responding as hoped. “They told me they would need to operate again because my lymph nodes weren’t shrinking. After my second operation, there was still some cancer in the lymph nodes so I did a couple rounds of chemotherapy.”
All the while, Randle continued to race. “It was during COVID so I still raced in a condensed season of the Super 2 Championship.” Now, he is nearing the end of that chapter. “I’ve still got one more check-up, one more scan, in a month or so. After that I’ll be officially cancer free and off the hook.”
In Australia, there remains a tendency among men to downplay health concerns, to default to the familiar ‘she’ll be right’ mindset. Randle sees this as the problem it clearly is. “Absolutely,” he says when asked if men need to be more proactive about their health. “It’s an area that has definitely gotten better, but it can still be improved. For the classic Aussie bloke, the motto is very much still ‘she’ll be right’.”
His message is simple: “With modern technology and all the resources at our disposal, if you’re not sure about something, go get checked because it’s pretty easy and quick to find out if something is wrong.” For him, that decision made all the difference. “If I had left it for longer, the cancer could have advanced to later stages.”
“I would hate for someone to put it off or delay it because they’re scared or embarrassed,” Randle continues. Through Movember’s ‘Know Thy Nuts’ campaign, he’s encouraging men to look after themselves and understand how to check for signs of testicular cancer. “It literally takes less than a minute to do. Just do it in the shower, do it whenever. And if you feel that something’s not right, go get it checked out.”
“I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me,” Randle says of his experience with cancer. “I just wanted people to see that, hey, if I can get it at age 23 when I’m fit, healthy, never smoked, never done drugs, it can happen to anyone. Which is scary.” As he says, it doesn’t take much to give yourself peace of mind: “A simple check can make a big difference.”
Find more information on Movember’s Know Thy Nuts campaign and how to check yourself for sings of testicular cancer here.
