newbie

[short311fan]

ok, here goes..... when i was younger, i always had issues with shyness and insecurity, i could never help just feeling that maybe i was "different" (always kinda felt more feminine than masculine, but wrote it off as my older brothers having the masculine side of things covered, lol), though i was always a very intelligent kid, always did well on IQ tests and such, and actually almost got to skip a grade (yep, i'm a geek, lol)..... i didn't look like any of the other boys, i had longer legs and arms, and once i became a teenager, i started develpoing a "chest" and my hips widened somewhat..... also, when i was very young, i wore corrective braces on my calves because i had "abnormally shaped ankles", don't know if that matters or not, but once i became a teenager, other fun things began happening, like when i was 14 and my right knee swelled up one morning out of the blue so it looked like i had a grapefruit tucked uner the skin..... not pleasant..... around this time i also started having occasional bouts of depression, which i saw a therapist for..... well, the bone specialist i saw had some blood tests ran, but all i was told was "eh, you'll be alright, nothing to worry about", while my mom got a nice 30 minute closed-door consultation with the doc..... as far as i knew, it was mild tendonitis (it's never fully gone away, thy still swell now and then along with my ankles, and i've developed one heckuva case of carpal tunnel in my left wrist and hand, as i sit here, it's completely numb), so i wrote that off and moved on..... then i started noticing, the other teens were all starting to shave, they were "maturing" and their voices were deepening, while i seemed to be stuck at roughly age 12 (i still get pulled over for drivers' license checks cuz i look 15 at age 30, lol), no facial hair, almost no body or pubic hair, my voice never changed, nothing..... while this saves me greatly in buying razor blades, it's still mildly disconcerting, to this day i can barely grow a goatee..... i also had a hard time building any sort of muscles in my upper body, and since i wanted to play football like my best friend and older brothers, that was depressing, since in sports you have to have good upper-body strength, though my legs have always been very strong..... but, i wrote all of that off too, thinking maybe i was one of the "late bloomers", and moved on, kinda thinking in the back of my head there was something wrong, but learning easily to ignore it..... this went on until i got married and my wife and i decided to have a child (she already had one from a previous relationship, whom i'm adopting, but we both want more)..... we tried and tried, for 2 years, and nothing, nada, zip..... finally, i went and saw my family practitioner, who, after a sperm count, told me "there's nothing wrong, you're just infertile, sorry, there's nothing more i can do", and at that time, where i lived at, there weren't many alternatives for second opinions (i also had crappy insurance), so, even though i wasn't satisfied with those results, i lived with it..... finally, somewhere i came across an article about testicular cancer, and it mentioned KF and some of the symptoms, and i thought "ok, why does this sound like they're describing me?"..... so i've finally found a doc that's willing to run the proper tests and give me an honest diagnosis, now i'm just getting up the nerve to go in and have the tests ran, i'm scared to death of what they're going to find, and the fallout with all my friends, my family, and especially my wife.....

in short, i suppose i'm just looking for some clarity in all this, some sort of light at the end of what's seeming to be a very long tunnel..... i don't know if i'm just over-reacting to myself, if i'm just nuts, or if my concerns are legitimate..... but there's too many coincidences for my taste..... any thoughts?