If you met Nathan Shalom last year, cancer is the last word you would have reached for. He is 27, lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, and runs a company that sells aesthetic devices to med spas. He and his girlfriend fill their weekends with travel, friends, and fitness challenges, the kind that ask for two workouts a day and a gallon of water. As he put it to Business Insider, the two of them simply cannot sit on the couch.

The idea that a person like him could have cancer only became real through someone else's loss. In late 2025, at a laser certification course in Georgia, he met a woman named Kathy Lemoine. Her son, Andrew Reaster, had been 30 when he was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. His only warning sign had been a stomachache. He died six months later. Lemoine had turned her grief into a mission: telling young, healthy people that cancer does not check your age or your diet before it arrives, and that symptoms are worth taking seriously.

Their conversation stayed with him. He was the same age her son had been. A few months later, when he started feeling pain in his right testicle, his abdomen, and his lower back, that memory is what stopped him from waiting it out. When the testicle began to swell and none of his friends recognized the symptoms as anything they had felt, he booked an appointment.

His story in brief

  • 27 years old, an active non-smoker with no family history he knew of.
  • First symptoms in spring 2026: pain and swelling on one side, plus abdominal and lower-back pain.
  • An ultrasound found a mass. An MRI confirmed stage 2, after the cancer had reached an abdominal lymph node.
  • Surgery in early June, followed by three rounds of chemotherapy.
The Newera Screening kit, a white box with a powder-blue lid, on a kitchen counter in morning light
The at-home kit. Concept render of the packaging; final production units may differ.

At the first visit, his urologist thought it was most likely an infection and said the symptoms did not really point to cancer. As a precaution, he offered an ultrasound anyway. Shalom left that appointment optimistic, expecting to walk away with a prescription. A few weeks later the office called: there was a mass in his right testicle. By June, an MRI confirmed stage 2 testicular cancer, because it had already spread to an abdominal lymph node.

Even after hearing a story exactly like his, he was sure it could never be him. That is the part he wants people to notice. A recurring theme in his account to Business Insider

What followed was the part no one warns you about. He had surgery to remove the testicle in early June. The MRI that would confirm whether the cancer had spread was first scheduled for August, two months out, so he spent hours on the phone pushing until he got it moved to the day before surgery. A family member mentioned, almost in passing, that he should add supplemental surgical coverage to his insurance, an extra cost he had never heard of and would have missed. Running his own business gave him flexible hours, but everything else fell on him, and he watched deals slip while he sorted out appointments.

As of this writing he is halfway through a three-round course of chemotherapy, due to finish in late September. Each round means five days in the hospital and five hours of infusions a day. He has lost his hair and lives with near-constant nausea and fatigue. He credits his girlfriend, his parents, his stepdad, and his friends with getting him through it. Lemoine, the woman whose story set all of this in motion, flew to Florida to surprise him after his surgery.

Why a screening company

Shalom is blunt about the lesson. Without that one conversation, he does not think he would have gotten checked when he did. Lemoine had told him she wished her son had been screened a year earlier, before there was ever a symptom to explain. That regret, more than any statistic, is what stays with him, and it is what New Era set out to answer with Newera Screening.

His own cancer is not the case for a blood test. Testicular cancer is usually found the way his was, through symptoms, a self-exam, and an ultrasound, and the right move when something feels wrong is to see a doctor quickly. What stayed with him was how easy it is to put off looking at all. Newera Screening is the practical answer to that: a physician-ordered blood panel measuring cancer-related markers across 10 areas of the body, collected at home, for people who feel well and want one more data point to take to their doctor. It is not a scan for every cancer, and it does not replace the screenings your doctor already recommends.

Business Insider The original report

Health

An active 27-year-old man was diagnosed with stage 2 testicular cancer

By Julia Pugachevsky  •  September 7, 2026

“If we just got it checked out a year ago, maybe it could have been different.”

Kathy Lemoine on her son Andrew, quoted in Business Insider. Her words are what sent Nathan to a doctor.
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Do not wait for a reason.

If something feels wrong, see a doctor now. If you feel well and want to stay ahead of it, screening is one more way to look.

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This page retells a personal account first reported by Business Insider and links to the original; it is a summary in our own words, not the full article. It is shared with respect for everyone in it. Nothing here is medical advice, a diagnosis, or a substitute for care from your own provider. Newera Screening is a physician-ordered laboratory biomarker panel. It does not diagnose cancer, does not detect all cancers, and does not replace the routine screenings your doctor recommends. Markers can be raised by conditions unrelated to cancer, and normal markers do not rule out cancer. If you have symptoms, see a doctor. If you think you are having a medical emergency, call 911.