Jesse Solomon Found it 'Hard to Care' About Summer House Drama amid Concern About Testicular Cancer Return-quang

The reality star anticipated the results of his five-year scan on the May 16 episode and tells PEOPLE "it was quite shocking" when he got the diagnosis in 2017

Emotions ran high on the May 16 episode of Summer House.

“A lot of tears shed by the boys over that weekend — some were warranted, some maybe not so much,” star Jesse Solomon tells PEOPLE.

At the beginning of the episode, Jesse, 30, felt nervous about his upcoming five-year cancer scan because he thought he felt a lump in his testicle. “I’m just not comfortable with like, being f---ing emotional,” Jesse, who was diagnosed with testicular cancer for the first time in August 2017, said to West Wilson.

Jesse tells PEOPLE he confided in West, 28, because they became “fast friends” after entering the shared house together.

“West really dragged it out of me,” Jesse says. “I wasn't trying to have a conversation about this scary thing. He just could tell something was wrong and he's a good friend and he asked, ‘What's wrong and is it about Tuesday?' And then I just broke down. I couldn't keep it in anymore.”

Meanwhile, Kyle Cooke confided in Carl Radke and Danielle Olivera about how it felt hearing wife Amanda Batula tell him she wanted to work on a side project that she felt more passionate about than their company Loverboy.

“The way Amanda talks to me, it actually disgusts me,” Kyle, 41, said.

The Loverboy founder and CEO cried in the car in the driveway, telling Danielle, 35, he felt “very defeated” by the situation. Later in the episode, Kyle spoke with Amanda, 32, by the pool and teared up when he told her he felt “really, like, sad” about the way their conversation unfolded. “I’m going to be there for you,” he promised Amanda.

Jesse didn't realize the extent of what Kyle and Amanda were dealing with that weekend. “I didn't know really Kyle was having his freak-out, but I was sitting there whenever he cries by the pool,” he told PEOPLE. “I was just out of the camera shot and I was just sitting there like, 'I cannot believe this guy is crying right now.' "

Jesse was diagnosed with testicular cancer at age 24 after going for a routine physical and telling his doctor he felt a “twinge of pain in my testicle.” The doctor recommended an ultrasound and Jesse asked for an STD test, too.

“I go and I pee in the cup and I get the ultrasound and they call me back right away. And I was at work, I missed the call, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I probably have chlamydia. My life is over. I'm going to have to tell this girl that I've been seeing and this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me,’” Jesse recalls.

When Jesse finally spoke to the doctor, they informed him that he had a tumor on his testicle that was likely cancer and would have to be removed.

“It was quite shocking and I was very scared and pretty freaked out,” Jesse says. “My parents handled it well and came to New York and we ended up doing everything in New York because I wanted to continue to live as normal of a life as possible.”

Jesse had his one testicle removed and didn’t need chemotherapy after the first detection, but then the cancer returned one year later, at which point he began four rounds of chemo. The University of Miami grad started losing his hair during the second round. “That was hard, but I knew it was coming, so I was prepared for it,” he says.

Also going into the second round, Jesse caught a cold, which delayed chemo by one week.

“Then I enter the third round of chemo still sick and get pneumonia, and then I'm in and out of the hospital,” the reality star says. "The whole four rounds of chemo was supposed to be three months, it ended up taking about four. I went to the hospital so many times that before they gave me the all-clear. By the end, I had no eyebrows and no hair, and I just was skinny fat and lost my muscle and lost my veins, but that stuff all comes back.”

Following four years of clean scans, Jesse entered Summer House season 8 hoping to keep the streak going and celebrate five years cancer-free. But he told West and Ciara Miller over the phone in the May 16 episode: “The doctor felt something and then I felt something separate and both things were like, abnormal.”

As a result, Jesse had to undergo an ultrasound.

“It had been smooth sailing, but I really thought once I found this bump that I was f---ed,” Jesse tells PEOPLE. “Your chances of a recurrence go way down once you've had chemo —they say my chances went from a 13% chance of a recurrence to a 2% chance — but when it's happened to you twice, in my mind, it's 50/50. You kind of have PTSD.”

He says that “having fun with my friends” and “partying” served as a “solid distraction” as he anticipated the scan, “but it's never going to be a solve for anything.”

Throughout that same weekend, Carl and his then-fiancé Lindsay Hubbard had drama of their own when she reopened the discussion of his career options.

“I want softness and tenderness,” Carl, 39, said to Lindsay, 37.

Lindsay replied, “Are you sure that you even want to marry me because I am not always going to be this soft, like cuddly…”

At the end of the weekend, Lindsay rode with Danielle so they could grab lunch on the way back to New York City, leaving Carl to drive back to by himself. “I personally need some space,” Lindsay said to Carl, who proceeded to leave without taking her luggage back with him.

Jesse knew about the tension between Lindsay and Carl that weekend, but his health concerns took precedence.

“It's just so hard to care about life things when you're just worried about your health, because if you don't have the health, you don't have any of these life things,” Jesse says. “That's something that having cancer has taught me is sometimes you just got to zoom out. It's still good to be motivated and ambitious, but sometimes when things don't go your way, it's really freeing that you're just alive and healthy and able to do any of these things.”

The episode ended with Jesse awaiting his test results. Jesse teases that he feels “good" today.

“I'm healthy, I'm happy and just trying to live in the present,” he says. “If I had known that I was going to be OK, if I knew that I was going to be on Summer House and living my best life at 30 and doing my thing, it would've been a lot easier. But I've gotten all these amazing messages of people who are like, ‘You inspired me to go to the doctor. I've been meaning to get my follow-up, and I've been putting it off.’ It's been super rewarding, even more so than I thought. That was a big reason that I wanted to do the show and I'm really glad I did.”