And even under those circumstances, it is not easy to get the TUE. I speak from first hand experience. I had testicular cancer 7 years ago. My post chemo T levels were low enough to cause me to start growing breasts, have no sexual function, night sweats, weight gain, and the usual other symptoms. I jumped through all of USADA's hoops, provided medical records, including 3+ months of weekly blood work, a letter from my endocrinologist, etc.
My TUE was denied.
Why? My blood work showed my total T levels were often well below USADA's threshold (high 100's, low 200's; threshold is 250ng/dL, if I'm not mistaken), but every so often my numbers would tick up to slightly above threshold (300-310). My numbers were below threshold about 2/3 of the time, but my lone nut would apparently sputter to life a bit and my numbers would go up. That was enough to doom my TUE application.
So, I just keep on "doping". Does the exogenous T make me superhuman? Not even close. The post cancer me is a faint shadow of what I was athletically before. All of the people I have trained with for years, which includes former pros, Olympians, Kona and ITU AG champs, they all know I'm on the juice, and they don't care (or if they do, they don't say it to me). Because they also know that I totally suck compared to back when I was competing clean.
And don't worry. I'm not taking anyone's podium spot or KQ slot from them. I don't even bother racing any more.
Cheers,
John