Cancer patients undergoing lifesaving chemotherapy often risk infertility, but staff at Jacobi Medical Center are working to help them keep their options open for having children in the future.
Social workers at the hospital are taking sperm samples from testicular cancer patients before treatment and saving them in an auxiliary sperm bank program for use afterward.
Generally, such sperm banks are expensive, but Jacobi Medical Center provides financial assistance to some patients.
One couple is already part of the program. Jose, a cancer survivor, and Rosa, his girlfriend, were not ready to have children before his treatment began.
With the sperm bank, they can have that option later in life, when they are ready.