MADRID, SPAIN – JULY 14: US singer Will.i.am (L) and Taboo (R) of the Black Eyed Peas of The Black Eyed Peas perform on stage at the Vicente Calderon stadium on July 14, 2011 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo by Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images)
As a member of the Black Eyed Peas, Jaime “Taboo” Gomez is used to being in the limelight.
But when it came to his battle with testicular cancer, the musician kept it private.
Now he is sharing his story.
“I thought about my kids. Am I going to live to see my kids grow up?” he said. “In that instant, I remember telling my wife and we went into fight mode, not flight mode.”
He had surgery to have his right testicle removed and underwent chemotherapy five days a week, for six hours day. Chemo was “like war, torture and a nightmare all in one,” he said.
Gomez said he had pains for years that he ignored. Those pains turned out to be signs that his tumor growing, he said.
Now he wants to warn other to pay attention to the signs.
“Sometimes we get so caught up in our daily lives, in our careers, that we forget to listen to our bodies,” Gomez said. “And that’s the most important message I’m trying to present and relay to everybody is that if you have a pain, listen to your body.”
