DT38 marked its 10th anniversary as a charity this month.

It’s been a decade since the big launch event at Upton Park Stadium, the former home of West Ham United FC, on February 28th, 2015.

DT38 was set up in memory of Dylan Tombides following his battle with testicular cancer, which came to a tragic end on April 18th, 2014.

The organisation is now a Principal Charity Partner of the Hammers and the Club has continued to support our cause throughout the years.

Dylan was a leading light in the West Ham United FC Academy and he made his first team debut in 2012 under then boss Sam Allardyce, who went onto become a DT38 Ambassador.

Across the decade the team at DT38 has worked very hard to raise funds, which has allowed the charity to continue its mission of raising awareness of testicular cancer and encouraging men and boys to check themselves once a month.

Through social media and in-person events DT38 has reached hundreds of thousands of people with important information about the disease.

And on many occasions DT38 has received messages or emails from men who have been moved by Dylan’s story, which has led them to self checking and to detecting testicular cancer.

A few weeks ago I felt a lump on my right testicle. I didn’t think much of it – it wasn’t clearly defined like I’d imagined a tumour would be, but it felt more rigid than it had before. I wasn’t sure how long it had been that way, and I had no pain or other symptoms. I very nearly didn’t do anything about it.

Then I thought of Dylan.

Dylan’s story emphasised for me that this was real, and that this does happen to young men. It was that nagging thought that pushed me over the line to book an appointment with my doctor. Within two weeks I was in for surgery, saying bye to my right testicle, and with it, the cancer that had so nearly gone undetected. 

I was first exposed to the DT38 Foundation through its presence at Perth Glory games, and I am so grateful for that, and for the efforts of everyone involved. My story could have been so different otherwise. Early detection is the difference between a fright, and a fight for your life.

I am not shy in saying Dylan saved my life.

MAC

TESTICULAR CANCER WARRIOR

DT38 has gone from strength to strength in the past ten years and launched as a registered charity in Australia in 2018, although it was raising awareness down under via the UK charity before then.

It is estimated that around 750,000 men and boys have been diagnosed with testicular cancer across the world in the past decade and work helping males detect any issues early continues and remains as important as ever.

Tracy Tombides, Co-Founder of DT38 and mother of Dylan Tombides, said: “We’re all very proud of what we’ve achieved over the past ten years and I’ve so grateful to our official partners and fundraisers who have enabled us to do this.

“One of the great indicators of success for me, are the many emails I have received over the years who were inspired by Dylan’s story or nudged by DT38 which led to them checking themselves.

“Only then did they discover that they did have testicular cancer, which the doctors were able to treat because it was caught earlier enough.

“Of course, we also still share many tragic stories about guys who were not able to catch the disease early enough and that is heartbreaking.

“And so our work continues and the fundraising continues, every penny or cent donated to DT38 goes directly into our work educating people about testicular cancer.

“We hope that you can support our fundraising efforts going forward as we work together to help save men’s and boy’s lives through education.

“As we say ‘delay is deadly, get educated'”.