When the doctor sought a diagnosis in 2002 he was 33, a dynamic orthopedic surgeon with a growing practice in Stamford and New York. His wife, Gail, was expecting their second child.
"I wasn't even particularly tired," Tifford recalls of the period before he was diagnosed with aggressive testicular cancer. "But when my doctor threw my chest X-ray up on the light box, it was like a snowstorm there were so many nodules on my lungs. We didn't know exactly what it was, but we knew I was ... in trouble. Big trouble."
Ultimately, tests would show that Tifford was suffering from choriocarcinoma, a testicular cancer that had spread to his liver and lungs. The cancer was so advanced that one of the country's top experts in the disease would bluntly advise his wife, "she better have us get our affairs in order," Tifford says.
He survived after gaining entry into an experimental treatment program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York that involved high doses of chemotherapy and stem cell transplants.
Today, after multiple surgeries that involved more than 50 days of hospitalization and the removal of his right testis, Tifford is cancer-free and back at work repairing the injured joints of patients at Stamford Hospital.
For six years, the Tiffords, who live
"We haven't done much beyond reaching out to our immediate friends, co-workers and family, but the outpouring has been incredible," Gail Tifford says.
The couple says they also hope to spread awareness of the disease, which tends to strike young men and has no known cause. The only risk factor is being born with undescended testicles, but many patients, including Tifford, do not fall into that category.
"Our biggest hope is to build awareness," says Craig Tifford. "If we can get boys, after puberty, to begin a program of self-exam, that could go a long way towards eradicating deaths from this."
Tifford did not have a lump at the time of diagnosis. He does not know if he ever had one, but says, "I am trying to establish a habit in young men for them to check themselves in the same way we encourage women to self-exam their breasts."
Once a year, Tifford, accompanied by Dr. Michael J. Nurzia, a Stamford Hospital urologist, visits local high schools to teach teenage boys how to look for the telltale lumps in their testes that can be an important first symptom. Three years ago, the Tifford foundation gave $5,000 to Stamford Hospital's Bennett Cancer Center to pay for anatomy models and other educational materials.
"You know, with all his knowledge and medical connections, this was such a brutal fight for Craig and our family," says Gail Tifford. "He told me in the intensive care unit, 'If I get through this, this is what I want to do.' And I am proud of him for keeping that promise."
A fairly rare disease, testicular cancer affects 7,000-9,000 men annually, mostly between ages 18 and 35.
Caught early — usually when men detect a lump in the testes — it is highly treatable, notes Dr. Neil Cohen, an oncologist at Stamford Hospital who was one of Tifford's doctors before Tifford enrolled in the experimental program in New York.
"The good news is that today very few men die of this disease," says Cohen, who says that since the 1970s, recovery rates for the illness have vastly improved largely due to advances in chemotherapy. "But there is a subgroup of men — the cyclist Lance Armstrong being among them — who when diagnosed with the disease in the advanced stages have a much different rate of survival. Craig Tifford was one of those men who was very, very sick, but was very lucky to be part of some of the impressive advances they have made with this disease at Sloan-Kettering."
Tifford says his case was even more involved than Armstrong's, whose well-documented recovery has often been heralded as miraculous. It was Armstrong's doctor, Dr. Lawrence Einhorn at the Indiana University School of Medicine, who told the Tifford family that his case was likely terminal.
"As you can imagine, my pregnant wife was going to hear none of that," says Craig Tifford. "But if I hadn't gotten into the treatment study at Sloan Kettering, I probably only had a few months to live."
Gail Tifford says she was profoundly affected by the struggles her husband faced to receive life-saving treatments despite his medical credentials.
"The M.D. after his name didn't mean a whole lot when we were trying to get appointments with experts. We would call for second opinions and these doctors were so busy, we would get told, 'Sure, we'll see you in six months,' " she says. "It took incredible perseverance for us to get Craig the help he needed."
She credits her mother, Joan Goldman, with making pleading phone calls that helped them get in to see doctors who helped Craig survive. "She was typical of how our friends and family rallied around us. She made these calls from the perspective of, 'I'm a mother, please help my family.' And it inspired us. My dream someday is to be an advocate for patients."
Working through the foundation is one way the family has begun to achieve its advocacy goals, she says.
"It is heartbreaking to me to think of what happens in the lives of young men when this strikes and it doesn't go well," Craig Tifford says. "We are trying to prevent that from happening to any family."
The Craig D. Tifford Foundation has a fundraising gala once a year to benefit research and public awareness programs. This year's gala will take place in New York City in October. Visit www.ctdfoundation.org.
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