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Nathan Adrian health update: back to practice, under “close surveillance”

The 3x Calympian was diagnosed with testicular cancer earlier this year.

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Things are looking good for Calympian Nathan Adrian after testicular cancer diagnosis and surgery performed by robots.
Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports

On January 24th of this year, Cal Men’s Swimming alum Nathan Adrian - one of the fastest men in the pool and a 3x USA “Calympian”, made a shocking announcement that he has been diagnosed with testicular cancer.

Less than a week later, the CGB Hall of Famer updated us with news of his surgery, where some lymph nodes were taken out.

Thank you to everyone for all your unbelievable support! Quick update: I underwent a laparoscopic RPLND procedure yesterday which means they took out some of my lymph nodes that the cancer may have spread to with the help of a robot . My doctor said it went well and my pathology report (which will tell us if it had spread) should be back in another week or so. Until then, we are going to do everything we can to get back to normal life as quickly as possible while staying well within my doctors’ parameters of course!

Yesterday, Nathan Adrian had an even better update.

After meeting with doctors last week and reviewing the results from the pathology we have determined the best route moving forward is close surveillance! I will have lots of doctors appointments and scans for the next several years and if all goes well they will prove to be trivial and uneventful.

The journey is far from over but I did want to take a moment to thank everyone for their support and kindness through all this. I have been doing my best to get back to normal life but now that this decision has been made we can get moving 100% on achieving my goals in and out of the water!

Being upgraded to “close surveillance” means that the doctors are wishful that the cancer is completely gone. That is as good of a news as possible at this stage of Adrian’s cancer battle.

While Nathan Adrian’s summer plan has not yet been announced, he did qualify for Team USA for this summer’s World Championships (as a relay swimmer) and this year’s Pan American Championships (both as an individual and in the relay) due to his performance at the US Nationals last summer. Nonetheless, Adrian has already stated that he is still intending on trying to make his 4th Olympic Games next summer for 2020 Tokyo. Being back to train in the pool with the rest of the Cal pro group should help him mentally get back to normalcy.

Best of luck to Nathan Adrian in his cancer battle.

GO NATHAN AND GO BEARS!