It speaks volumes about the positivity of Andrew Fenby that, even now, he still tries to find upsides to the challenging couple of years he’s faced.
In the space of a week back in October 2020, the former Scarlets winger was diagnosed with stage two cancer and was also forced to close down his sports management agency. The cruel double blow would have blindsided anyone.
To Fenby’s credit, he rolled with the punches, pushed himself through chemotherapy and the tiring side effects it brings and now finds himself on the other side - with a new job and a desire to raise awareness about testicular cancer. Yet, as he recounts his story, that inherent desire to be positive even seeps into past events through hindsight.
Take, for instance, the fact that the Covid lockdown had seen him move back home to North Wales before his diagnosis, meaning he happened to have the support of parents Neil and Claire close by. “I guess, as daft as it sounds,” he suggests, “in years to come, we might look back on it and cherish those moments closer to my parents as actually enjoyable.”
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He also fondly recalls how his dad driving him to receive treatment in Liverpool was akin to being driven to and from rugby training in his youth. Taking the positives out of the situation is remarkable when you hear how, during his chemotherapy treatment, Fenby simply couldn’t risk getting Covid due to his compromised immune system and fear of not being allowed into hospital for his treatment - only adding to the stress the whole family was going through.
“I got to spend time with them, even if not in the circumstances you’d want,” he adds. “Even now, they say they enjoyed spending so much time with us.
“I probably shouldn’t see it like this, but thinking of the positives, it’s the quality time we spent together. Well, question mark on the quality, but we got to spend time together.”
That’s just the nature of Fenby, who became a fans’ favourite at Parc y Scarlets during his four years in Llanelli. As he recounts the story of his diagnosis, laced with the same positivity demonstrated above, the frightening part is just how innocuously it began.
“It all started back in August 2020,” Fenby begins. “I was putting my son into the car when he had this tantrum as all three-year-olds do.
“He didn’t want to sit in his car seat and, flailing his legs, he caught me flush in my right testicle. There wasn’t so much a pain as just an odd sensation. I've had plenty of bangs in that area of my career in my life but this strange sensation was something new.”
“But other than that, I had no inkling anything could be wrong. I train hard, I play squash at a high level.
“But just because I bizarrely happen to know a lot of people who have had testicular cancer - if you look at my time at the Scarlets, Morgan Stoddart and Matthew Rees have both had it - I knew to examine the area. It wasn’t the size of an orange, because you hear stories, it wasn’t lumpy or bumpy - there was just an area the size of a pea that was a different texture.
“So I went and got it checked as you’re supposed to do, but unfortunately I didn’t get a GP but a nurse practitioner. She examined me and sent me home, saying I had nothing to worry about. In my mind, that was it. I’ve seen someone and I’ve been told I’m fine.
“But over the next nine weeks, through training and just being a climbing frame for my two young boys, I could tell that something’s not right here. That’s when my gut instinct was to get a second opinion.
“I got an ultrasound and it was there that the radiologist let out a genuine gulp. I had the scan at 5pm on a Friday and then I was booked in to see the consultant at 10am on the Saturday morning. Looking back, that tells you something was up.
“I had the surgery to remove the testicle within 10 days of that. At that point, I still didn’t know exactly what was wrong - only that there was a high chance it was testicular cancer.
“Then they did blood markers and a CT scan. Finally, two weeks after the operation, it came back confirming I was stage two testicular cancer.”
As something of an optimist, even after the operation, Fenby felt “totally fine” with cancer almost ruled out in his mind. So to say the news blindsided him would be something of an understatement.
Suddenly, everything else in his life would come to a halt. This was now Fenby’s sole focus.
“It’s such a powerful, scary word,” he admits.”I was certain the odds would fall on my side. But in that moment, it was just a case of ‘Whoa’. You just don’t know the implications or the journey you’ll be going on.”
But Fenby isn’t exactly one to sit and wallow. The fact, as he mentioned, he happens to know several others who have gone through the same thing allowed him to rationalize matters and process some sort of path in the aftermath of this bombshell. That network, along with the close support of family and friends, became a needed reassurance.
“Everything just stopped,” he adds. “And that was it. That was going to become my sole focus.
“Again, given the type that I am, the first thought is I'm gonna smash it. I'm gonna crush and it's not going to beat me. I'm gonna get through this as best I can.
“You start to think that maybe this isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. You know, I will get through this and I will be fine.
“I’m not going to lose 40 kilograms and be curled up in a ball on the bed. Just being able to reach out and have conversations with those who have been through it helped me come to terms with what I was dealing with quite quickly.”
Some of those conversations were with former team-mates. Stoddart, Rees and another Welsh rugby star who has overcome testicular cancer, Johnny Williams, all got in touch, as did a host of former Scarlets.
“I had guys like Dom Day, Rhys Thomas, Rhys Priestland and Johnny Edwards getting in touch. Johnny was phoning me every other day. Lou Reed wouldn’t leave me alone, constantly sending messages to keep my spirits up.
“There were so many characters that I hadn’t spoken to in a long time, but they were all so proactive in reaching out and doing whatever they could. That's one of the great things about rugby.”
However, while individuals from the sport were rallying around Fenby, circumstances conspired to take him away from the sport professionally. Having hung up his boots for good in 2016, he had set-up his own rugby agency - only for Covid-19 to strike.
“The week it came through confirming my stage two diagnosis was the week I had literally just closed the sports agency that I’d founded and had been running. Instantly, I was thinking this wasn’t good for my job prospects!
“Just as I was about to start my job hunt, everything had to pause. It was tough because I was about to become unemployed.
“There were already tough conversations we had with shareholders. But I ultimately had to take a step back.
“The reason I closed was exactly what we’re seeing now. I could see rugby is going to struggle for a few years. There’s going to be a lot of pain so let’s be proactive and get out before the destruction hits. No one could have foreseen Covid and the impact it had.
“It’s always tough closing a business, being unemployed and looking for a job. Then I had an even bigger issue on my hands and I just had to focus on that.”
To his credit, Fenby threw himself into his recovery. Rather than sit in hospital watching daytime TV during his treatment, he phoned friends or completed an online degree in computer science.
He also managed to push himself slowly back into doing more and more exercise. Before long, he was out running twice a week. And when he did have those moments when he wasn’t feeling quite as good, he binged on Game of Thrones.
“If I just wallow and lie in my bed thinking about how I feel, I’ll feel like crap” he says. “So I kept myself busy.
“Two of my old strength and conditioning coaches, Ben Pollard and Andre Quinn, had both had testicular cancer and they were brilliant with me, telling me about the benefits of exercise.
“I was probably breaking records for my slowest ever runs, but the mental benefits I got from it were invaluable.”
By January 2021, the chemotherapy was complete and Fenby could look to start the job hunt properly. However, once he’d secured a job, there was another setback.
Three lymph nodes were still causing issues and so in June of that year, he underwent a major operation, called a retroperitoneal lymph node dissection, to have them removed. Fenby was out for seven hours as the operation left him with the scar his son, Freddie, refers to as his “crocodile bite”.
“They just cut me down the middle, took all my insides out and that really set me back. I lost 10kg and was so frail.
“It was so frustrating because just when you think you’re out of it, you fall the wrong side of the odds. But after rolling your eyes, you just want to get back to get on the front foot.
“There was talk of being monitored or even doing it robotically, which would have meant a smaller scar. But I just wanted to maximize my chances of success.
“Just cut me open, have a good look in there and get whatever you need. Hopefully then, that’ll be the last of it.
“I even suggested blasting me with more chemo to get it over and done with, which they strongly advised me not to do as I was technically cancer free. But I just wanted to get it done. That’s just my thing.”
Thankfully, the operation was a success and Fenby didn’t remain frail for too long. By September, he was jogging again. By the end of that month, he tentatively started playing squash again before playing competitively for the first team at Queen's Club by the middle of October.
And then in March of this year, he completed the London Landmark half-marathon in early April, raising over £10,000 for Orchid Cancer to help support those with penile, prostate and testicular cancer. It led to him receiving the RPA Blyth Spirit Award earlier this year alongside rugby league legend Kevin Sinfield, who himself had completed a 101-mile charity challenge to raise money for those affected by motor neurone disease after the diagnosis of former Leeds Rhinos team-mate Rob Burrow.
“It’s a huge, huge honour to be alongside someone like him,” admits Fenby. “I actually feel quite embarrassed about it.
“They did his video montage as he wasn’t there on the night and just all his achievements and the support he’s provided for Rob Burrow. I was thinking how I can I be up with a man of that stature? It’s just incredible.”
As well as the award, Fenby is now back living in London with his wife Henni and sons Freddie and Bertie, having started a new career in the tech industry. The online course he completed during his chemotherapy went a little way to securing the job.
On the other side of it all, Fenby’s positivity continues to shine through. He hopes that, along with the wider message of awareness, can be the lesson people take from his story.
“My wife was an absolute rock and now we’ve got through this, I feel we can get through anything. The same can be said for my parents and my friends.
“Sometimes I think we under invest in those relationships in those close relationships. It’s easy to go years without speaking to people, but they are the ones who will be there in those tough moments.
“So my two pieces of advice are check yourself and make sure you get seen if you suspect something is wrong, but also invest in those relationships. There’ll come a time in your life when you will need that support.”
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