Balls, nuts, gonads, cojones, the family jewels… testicles. What would you do without them? That hypothetical question became a reality for writer and actor Byron Lane after receiving a testicular cancer prognosis and the removal of one of his testicles.
Confronted with the prospect of losing his luscious full head of hair due to chemotherapy treatments, Lane decided to make a web series about the surgical experience before his hair fell out. Last Will and Testicle is a six-episode comedy web series written, directed and starring Lane as Will.
The series follows Will as he goes through each stage of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) and how it affects the people in his life. Will’s boyfriend, family, and co-workers hilariously manage to say all the wrong things.
Will: I found a lump on the testicle.
Dad: This was caused by all that gay stuff.
Will’s boyfriend: Eww, that was in mouth.
To make matters worse Will’s nightmares consist of a life size, talking version of his testicle and the cancerous lump that berates him.
Will: Who are you? The lump on my testicle?
Cancerous Lump: No, I’m the lump on your elbow. Fuck you, of course I’m the lump on you testicle!
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Last Will and Testicle also stars gay film-fan favorites Sam Pancake (Where the Bears Are, Pretty the Series) as Will’s surgeon, Jonathan Van Ness (Gay of Thrones) as Will’s testicle and Drew Droege (You’re Killing Me) as the cancerous lump. Character actress and comedy queen, Beth Grant (The Mindy Project, Sordid Lives) plays Will’s mother.
A kickstarter campaign was recently launched to help fund the first season and postproduction costs. In less than two weeks they were able to exceed their goal of $5000. Due to the overwhelming response and donations a second season is already in the works.
In season two, Will finds out the lump was cancer and now he has tough choices to make about his treatment. He also has to cope with the reality that even though he had a testicle removed, there’s always the chance the cancer will return. He questions whether he is living life to the fullest.
Lane is no stranger to offbeat and subversively hilarious content. He previously parlayed his web series, Herpes Boy about a misanthropic, wanna-be youtube star with an unfortunate birthmark, into the award-winning feature film starring Beth Grant and Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer.
Check out the trailer for the series and donate to the Kickstarter campaign here.
hyhybt
hat hypothetical question became a reality for writer and actor Byron Lane after receiving a testicular cancer prognosis.
That would be a diagnosis.
reply
Actually, you can have a cancer prognosis. (A prediction about how something (as an illness) will develop).
Cancer wasn’t determined until the testicle had been removed and tested.
hyhybt
@reply: certainly. But that’s a poor match for the sentence, which near enough certainly is referring to his being told he has cancer as a prognosis. Nowhere in this article is there any mention of the expected outcome.
VirginiaBiker
Thanks for this. I had testicular cancer in 1981-82.
Joe
This is a good outlet of discussing this. It’s not really ever talked about. Almost tabu, but TC happens to many young men, mostly in their 20’s and 30’s. This is a perfect way of opening the discussion of TC. Testicular cancer is the equivalent to breast cancer- they are both glands.