Marching through a testicular cancer diagnosis

A disturbing discovery

A few weeks before finals in the spring of 2024, Niemi began feeling pain, then a lump in his groin. His parents scheduled an appointment with his primary care doctor, and the test results led them to the OSUCCC – James. There, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

Niemi was 19.

Besides thinking about his diagnosis and his future fertility — he’s had the same girlfriend since his freshman year in high school — Niemi had another big concern: Would he be able to try out again for Ohio State’s marching band?

The tryout was a couple of months away, but all summer, marching band hopefuls attended practice sessions to get ready.

“I didn’t know how chemo was going to go. I didn’t know if my arms were going to be strong enough or my legs would be strong enough to get through the tryout,” says Niemi, a sophomore.

As a high school student in Marysville, Ohio, Niemi played alto saxophone for his school’s marching band, but The Ohio State Marching Band doesn’t have alto saxophone players. So, he learned the cymbals and made it onto the band his freshman year at Ohio State. Still, each summer, everyone who wants a spot has to try out again.

Catching testicular cancer early

Testicular cancer is a young man’s disease. Nearly 10,000 new patients are diagnosed every year, and most are in their twenties, says Ahmad Shabsigh, MD, MBA, FACS, a urologic oncologist and one of Niemi’s doctors at the OSUCCC – James.

Testicular cancer typically responds well to treatment. On average, five years after diagnosis, 95% of people survive.

“How soon the cancer is diagnosed is the most important factor in the outcome of testicular cancer patients,” says Dr. Shabsigh, who’s also an associate professor of Urologic Oncology at Ohio State University College of Medicine.

“Grayson was attentive to changes he saw and sought immediate help, which is the way to go,” Dr. Shabsigh says.

By the time he was diagnosed, his cancer had already spread to lymph nodes in his chest area and a couple on his lungs.

But even when testicular cancer spreads to other organs, treatment is still very effective at stopping it, says Paul Monk, MD, a medical oncologist who also treated Niemi.

“Our treatment team was impressed with what we saw in Grayson, a settled resolve to take on an uninvited challenge,” he says.

While Niemi and his parents discussed a schedule for chemo with Dr. Monk, Niemi scrolled on his phone for the dates of the band tryouts. He’d finish his final round of chemo on the last day of a two-day tryout.

Good, he thought. That’s do-able.

‘That’s not possible’

Just as summer band practices were about to start, Niemi posted on Snapchat to the other five cymbals players in the band with him freshman year:

I want to give you guys a quick update. Over the past week, we’ve discovered that I most likely have early-stage cancer. I’m having a surgery this Friday ... I’ll be back as soon as I can. I just wanted to explain why I’ll probably miss the first few weeks of summer sessions.

“It was one of those moments when I was like, ‘That’s not possible,’” says Owen Morris, a junior at Ohio State who also plays cymbals in the band. “I had never experienced someone so close to me having cancer.”

Morris met Niemi in 2022 when Niemi was a high school senior and started going to band summer sessions.

“I was very concerned about you,” Morris said recently, sitting across from Niemi in the kitchen of the apartment they now share with one other roommate.

“I knew it was going to be hard, and I thought, ‘Man, I really hope it doesn’t keep you from getting in the band.’ But then you showed up and did great.”

Niemi’s eyes well up, though he seldom shows much emotion and is uncomfortable with sympathy, even for a disease he never expected to have, certainly not in college.

Bald and bold

All last summer, which started with one surgery and ended with a second and nine weeks of chemo in between, Niemi joked with his bandmates. He kidded about being bald, the only bald member of the marching band. They ran with it. Light reflects off cymbals and off bald heads, they joked.

“That helped us a lot,” Morris says of his fellow band members. “He was so light-hearted, and that energy was given to everyone in the band.”

Niemi’s cancer wasn’t a secret. It wasn’t uncomfortable for people. He never wanted it to be.

“Call it a coping mechanism or whatever. If we’re joking about it, we’re definitely talking about it. And it creates a sense of community that we could just laugh about it,” Niemi says.

Ringing the bell of victory

On the morning of the final day of band tryouts, Niemi and his mom watched a Disney movie while he had chemo. He got lucky. After 21 infusions over a couple of months, his last infusion didn’t take long, and he felt pretty good.

Afterwards, he pulled a short rope, ringing a bell announcing that he had finished his last round of chemo. Then, rather than celebrating like some do, he rushed out. His mom dropped him off at the band tryout, and for the rest of the day he was mostly outside marching, a five-pound cymbal in each hand, a bandage on his arm where the needle for the infusion had been.

“It’s kind of amazing,” says Abby Dickman, Ohio State’s cymbal squad leader. “Not everyone could do what he did. It took a lot of both physical strength and mental strength to push through all of that.”

Early in the summer, Niemi warned Dickman that there may be times when he’d have to sit it out at practices. But then he never did. And he urged her not to go easy on him with critiques of his playing and his marching.

“He told me, ‘I don’t want you to hold back on your comments just because I’ve had treatments. Tell me what you see. I want to be able to look the best I can for tryouts.’”

To get ready for them, Niemi made most of the summer’s practice sessions. Some days his feet swelled so much from steroid medications that he came home with a collection of blisters. Mostly he felt drained.

Making the cut

Hours after tryouts were over, Neimi stood with all the other band hopefuls when his name was called out in a long list. He had made it.

Not everyone in the percussion section of the band had known about his cancer until that day. All the drummers and cymbal players gathered in a large circle. Each said their name and one interesting fact about themselves.

“I did my last day of chemo today,” Niemi said.

They broke out into the group’s familiar chant.

Even after the season began and Niemi had a second surgery, he was back a couple weeks later, marching down the ramp onto the field, knees high, toes pointed down.

Although he’ll regularly be checked for cancer for several years, his prognosis is good, his doctors say.

Neimi wasn’t thinking about the future or about how hard the summer had been when he stood before all 200-plus band members and its leaders after a recent concert. The band had just voted him the year’s most inspirational band member.

“Should I have prepared a speech?” he asked his mom just before the event. He hadn’t.

So, he winged it and kept it brief, thanking everyone and letting them know what motivated him all summer long: that he loved nothing more than being in the band.