This injury was a blessing

Taking a hard shot to the groin would seem to be anything but lucky, especially for a teenage boy. But for Eastview junior Andy Freeman, it turned out to be the luckiest moment of his life.

Freeman, playing goalie for Eastview's JV boys' hockey team on Jan. 26, took a wrist shot square off his protective cup.

"I thought I could shake it off," Freeman said, "but I felt like I was going to puke."

He had to come out of the game. Afterwards, Freeman asked his dad, Dean, to take him to the doctor. Eventually, they headed to Children's Hospital in St. Paul, where an ultrasound revealed something far more serious than anyone could have imagined: He had a tumor in his left testicle.

"Hearing that was like a sucker punch in the gut," said Lynn, Andy's mother.

Andy's first question was if it was life-threatening. Reassured by the answer that even a cancerous tumor would have a great cure rate, Andy had a second question: Can I still play lacrosse?

It turned out the answer was yes. Freeman, a captain and an attacker for the Eastview lacrosse team, scored seven goals in his first two games this season. The past three months, however, have changed his life forever.

Moving fast

The Freemans were told to call a referred oncologist on that Monday, two days after the injury occurred. But Andy woke up in severe pain on Sunday morning, and that afternoon the family conferred with a surgeon specializing in pediatric urology, Dr. Joel Hutcheson. He had looked at the blood work from the night before and told them the tumor was cancerous. Surgery would be at 8 a.m. Monday at Children's Hospital in Minneapolis.

"I had mixed feelings about the surgery," Andy said. "But I was more nervous than scared."

The outpatient surgery only took about 30 minutes, and Andy was home by 2 p.m. On Tuesday night, he went to his team's hockey game. By then, the team already had testicular cancer awareness stickers on their helmets -- part of an overwhelming show of support that extended to friends and classmates at Eastview.

"It was surprising how many kids left text messages and how many phone calls I got," Andy said. "On the day of the surgery and the day after, people started coming to my house after school got out. There was always somebody at my house those couple of days."

Andy went back to Children's Hospital for tests that Wednesday, including a bone scan, blood work and scans of his abdomen, chest and pelvis. The good news: Andy's cancer had been Stage 1, the earliest stage. The tumor had not spread beyond the testicle. After four more weeks of testing for tumor markers, doctors decided Andy did not need to undergo chemotherapy. He will continue to be tested monthly for a year, and will be watched for about 10 years.

He went back to school Thursday, only three days after his surgery. He was cleared to start practicing lacrosse full speed around March 1 -- barely a month after the hockey game that changed his life.

Supporting and educating

The Eastview hockey team banquet was held March 9, one day after the end of the state tournament. Eastview co-head coach Drew Bradley was giving out letters at the banquet, and when he got to Andy he said, "You made the save of your life."

Said Dean Freeman, Andy's father: "When the coach said that, the entire room went silent. It sent chills down my spine."

Raising awareness for testicular cancer, the most common form of cancer among men ages 15-34, has become an important part of life for the Freeman family. Like the Eastview hockey team, the lacrosse team wears the testicular cancer awareness stickers on their helmets. During the Lightning's opening game of the lacrosse season, Andy was standing next to a Prior Lake player during a stoppage in play.

"The Prior Lake kid asked me about the sticker," Andy. "I told him it was for cancer awareness and if he noticed it, that's what it was there for."

Eastview was 4-1 entering Thursday night's game against Eagan, with Freeman leading the way. Throughout the ordeal and aftermath, Andy's sense of humor has remained as sharp as his skill set. Andy is a lefthanded lacrosse player. During a practice earlier this season, one of the coaches called him "lefty" and Andy shot back "Not anymore!"

"Andy's is still the same jokester he was before this happened," said Tim Roche, Eastview's lacrosse coach. "He's talks about what happened, which is great. He's not mad at life, and deep down he's still the same good-natured kid he always was. You can tell he takes life pretty seriously now and realizes it's an easy thing to lose."

Chuck Fitzer is a University of Minnesota student reporter on assignment for the Star Tribune.