{"id":892,"date":"2014-08-26T20:08:37","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T00:08:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shakabrown.com\/home\/?p=892"},"modified":"2021-01-07T04:05:35","modified_gmt":"2021-01-07T04:05:35","slug":"111713-not-what-i-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shakabrown.com\/home\/111713-not-what-i-expected\/","title":{"rendered":"11\/17\/13 – Not what I expected"},"content":{"rendered":"
**WARNING – This article is not for the weak stomach. It uses the word “testicle”. A lot. Testicle Testicle Testicle. There is also a scrotum involved.***<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So I’m taking a shower, using the camel approach to treat my swollen testicle, which involves not looking at, or touching anything down there. I then made the mistake. \u00a0I checked on it, lifting the jewels up while in the shower. Then I calmly freaked the fk out. My mother was outside of the room, and I didn’t want to scream at what I saw.<\/div>\n
My right ball was leaking.
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I turned off the shower, dried off, and tried to figure out how to let Mommy know what was going on. My mother is more of a person that prefers to listen to how you’re feeling than hear exactly what’s happening physically.\u00a0 I make it out of the bathroom, pick up the phone to call my nurse and calmly asked if she could come as quickly as possible.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

“I think my testicle is about to burst open”<\/div>\n
Perhaps I came off too strong. Mommy gasped and ran out of the room. That wasn’t what I expected.<\/div>\n
I laid back and waited for the nurse to kick the door in with a doctor, a stretcher, a triage team, a priest, and maybe a couple of SWAT guys. After about 15 minutes the nurse came in (alone), and asked what was going on with my testicle.<\/div>\n
“I don’t know, I looked at it in the shower and it’s\u2026just look”<\/div>\n
She looks at it and there is no deep look of concern on her face. Instead she says that she should get a sample, and walks out of the room, coming back a few minutes later with some cotton swabs that she uses to take a sample of the testicle juice. She puts the swabs into a tube, labeled with my name. She then asks me if I’m in pain, and if would I like a percocet.<\/div>\n
“Well, no I’m not in pain. Is there going to be a doctor or something to look at this because..um\u2026well, I mean my testicle is leaking. MY TESTICLE IS LEAKING! I don’t care about you taking a sample, but we should also address, perhaps as a team, that the patient’s testicle has sprung a leak, and the patient may be expecting some medical care other than a q-tip and a perkie.”<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
This is what I was thinking to say.<\/div>\n
Instead I just whimpered<\/div>\n
“No, I’m not in pain.”<\/div>\n
And then she left. Not what I expected.<\/div>\n
I cried myself to sleep with a towel between my legs, not knowing if I was going to wake up to a tangled mess hanging out of my scrotum.<\/div>\n
The next day I wake up and the balls are still in the bag. How many guys wake up relieved at that fact? You really learn to appreciate things in a hospital. I have the doctors standing around me, and the head of the Whitecoats asks what happened last night with my scrotum. \u00a0 I show her what’s going on, fully prepared to be wheeled into emergency surgery and come out with a nickname like Half-sack, or Left-Nut. She, not so gently, pokes at my situation<\/div>\n
“Hmm, abscess. That’s good. It should be fine.” – Not what I was expecting.<\/div>\n
She takes a closer look, this time with a little more squeeze.<\/div>\n
“Actually, I think we should have a urologist take a look” – Finally! This is what I was expecting!<\/div>\n
The doctor team then shuffles out, and I feel a little bit of victory. They are going to bring in a ball-specialist to check out my, obviously not quite right, balls! Mommy makes it back to the hospital, and even asks how my “stuff” is doing. I let her know that all is still attached, without giving too much detail. That’s good enough for her.<\/div>\n
Later that evening the urologist shows up, and how amped I am to see him. He gets to work checking me out. I must admit, I’ve never been so excited to have another man handling my testicles. I ask the doctor how likely it is that my right testicle will come out and he assures me that it’s just like a big pimple that’s draining. The testicle will not come through the scrotum. Sigh of relief.<\/div>\n
“The abscess is mostly drained. I’m going to get the rest out.”<\/div>\n
“Sure thing doc”<\/div>\n
The urologist steps out of the room to get some materials, and mom comes back in. When he comes back he’s holding a lot of packages. I was thinking he would bring the same stuff one might use to squeeze out a big pimple. That’s what he said. A pimple. I use two fingers and maybe some tweezers on a pimple.<\/div>\n
So why did he just pull out a needle? A big one. That’s when the nurse comes in and asks if I want morphine.\u00a0 Morphine?! I never needed morphine for any pimple that I had. What the heck is going on? Doctor lays out a towel, some vials, cotton swabs, alcohol, a testicle press, a gerbil. I begin to show some\u2026 anxiety.<\/div>\n
Did I mention that Mommy has cleared the room already? I was now outnumbered.<\/div>\n
“What’s the needle for doc?”<\/div>\n
“Don’t be alarmed, I am going to numb the testicle.” – Those two sentences don’t really belong in the same breath. It came out of him as calmly as “I’ll have a side of ham with that omelet”.<\/div>\n
My heart is in my throat, and I am looking for the easiest way to get out of the situation. It would involve dropkicking the doctor, shoving the nurse out of the way, and getting into the hallway. As I am only wearing a hospital gown, I will have to find some pants in the hallway somewhere. And underwear. Unfortunately I barely have enough muscle in my legs to stand, much less resort to my Kung-fu technique. I am stuck. And I am scared. This is not what I expected.<\/div>\n
Then something in me relaxed, and I accepted what was happening.\u00a0 This guy wasn’t going to kill me, he was just going to stick a big needle into my testicle.\u00a0 It’s nothing new for him. I knew I would have a hell of a story to share when this was over.<\/div>\n
I turned to the nurse<\/div>\n
“I think I’ll go with that morphine, thank you.”<\/div>\n
Then the needle went in. I did shriek. I did cry. The nurse held my hand, and told me things would be OK. I made it through.<\/div>\n
Then the needle went in again. That was not what I expected.<\/div>\n
Turned out he needed to do it about 4 times. I tell myself it’s because I have some exceptionally robust testicles. Well, at least the right one. Finally he’s either satisfied, or out of anesthetic, because he starts on the draining process. I don’t really have a great view of the bottom of my right testicle, nor do I have any feeling, so there’s nothing much to do but lie there and let the nurse squeeze my hand. I do know it involved a lot of scraping and squeezing. He’s done inside of about 10 minutes<\/div>\n
“So Mr Brown, it’s drained, most of it had come out already. I recommend keeping this open to the air, and keep it dry. It should close up soon. Scrotums heal quickly.”<\/div>\n
There’s a Jeopardy fact for you. Scrotums heal quickly. Time for me to take a look at the work.<\/div>\n
I lean forward, and once again had to hold back from shrieking.\u00a0 My scrotum looked like the doctor had gone to town with a weed wacker on it. There was stuff hanging out that I really wasn’t sure if it should be there. I looked at the doctor and asked him if he was sure about that. He looked at my most recently betrayed jewels again\u2026<\/div>\n
“Actually, we can probably use some gauze. Nurse.”<\/div>\n
I was left lying there with a bandaged scrotum, wondering if I could fall asleep before the morphine wore off. Mommy came back into the room, and asked how it went.<\/div>\n
I have no idea of the answer she expected. No point in stressing her out.<\/div>\n
“It’s done. Wasn’t so bad. I’m going to take a nap now.”<\/div>\n
This was a big step in the transition. Acceptance that everything is not what you expect. I woke up with no pain. Mommy was still there. I’ll admit…that, I kinda expected.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

**WARNING – This article is not for the weak stomach. It uses the word “testicle”. A lot. Testicle Testicle Testicle. There is also a scrotum involved.*** So I’m taking a … <\/p>\n

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