Pitcher Jameson Taillon opens up on cancer after returning to Pirates
Jameson Taillon thought he could explain the early symptoms.
The occasional groin pain this offseason might have been from lifting too much on leg day, or maybe a minor re-aggravation of a hernia injury he had two years earlier. The right-hander, 25, alerted the Pirates training staff to his migraine headaches in spring training, but those went away in time.
The strangest part was the way sleep started disrupting his deliberate morning routine. Taillon typically rises around 8 a.m. to make breakfast and brew coffee. A few times in April, though, Taillon told teammates he had slept 10 or 11 hours the previous night and still was exhausted. They supposed it could have been because of baseball’s wacky early season schedule.
“If I’m sleeping in too long, there’s a problem,” Taillon said last week, around the time he learned he would pitch Monday at PNC Park, exactly five weeks after surgery for testicular cancer.
Taillon could not explain the lump. After discovering a mass on one of his testicles May 2 while in his Cincinnati hotel room, Taillon searched the internet for solutions. The results scared him.
“I think your mind has a natural tendency to wander,” Taillon said. “For me, I kind of compare it to this: If someone calls me and I miss the call, I immediately don’t think much of it. There’s a million reasons why this person could call me today. If they call back or if I don’t call them back right away, I start thinking of all the reasons why they called me. I start worrying more.
“In this case, I initially started WebMDing, which is dangerous. I started wandering. At first I didn’t think much of it. Over time I started to think, man, something isn’t right.”
The next night, Taillon endured one of the worst starts of his career, yielding two three-run home runs in the Cincinnati Reds’ 7-2 win. Taillon said physically he was still strong, so he doesn’t shift blame, but he admits now his health might have been on his mind.
He could not ignore it. Among the positives Taillon, a former No. 2 overall draft pick, plucked from two seasons spent rehabilitating after Tommy John and hernia surgeries in the minors were a heightened understanding of his body and a willingness to see doctors. And so after the May 3 start, Taillon told the team’s head athletic trainer Todd Tomczyk about the lump he had found.
“It was seriously incredible to see our medical team hop into action so quickly,” Taillon said.
For Michael Taillon, his father, the saga started with his cellphone ringing at the crack of dawn May 6 in Calgary, Alberta, where he runs oil and gas operations for global brokerage Aon. Watching his son’s start from his office three days earlier, he sensed something was off.
On the other end of the line, his wife, Christie, relayed what she had just learned. After a preliminary ultrasound at PNC Park and another at Allegheny General Hospital, doctors suspected Taillon had testicular cancer. He was scheduled for surgery in two days.
“I ran through the gamut of emotions,” said Michael Taillon, who lost both parents to cancer. “Anger. Sadness. Why him? Why not me? Tears until there were no more tears. Worrying about him and what this would mean for him - not about baseball, but about him as our child and his health now and down the road. This is the first time one of our children has been this ill.
“Boy, it rings your bell. It wakes you up in a hurry.”
Dr. Jordan Taillon, a pulmonary and critical care specialist in Fort Myers, Fla., is nine years older than his youngest brother, Jameson, but they’ve always felt closer. The bond fortified about a decade ago when Jordan lived at home for a year between college and medical school.
They played Ping-Pong daily. Jordan, a former Division III All-American tennis player, handicapped his game by playing left-handed, and he won regularly. “As calm and collected as Jamo is on the mound,” he said, “I did get him to throw the racket a few times.”
Jameson countered: “I’ll throw a jab now and say his style of play in Ping-Pong is lame. I’m the guy who spins it, crushes it. He’s the guy who just giggles and laughs and lobs it back over the net. He can return anything I hit. That’s why I’d get so angry. He’s a pest.”